Episode 11 Caught Red Handed

Thieves will steal our cars, our valuables,

just about anything they can get their hands on.

To cut down on crime and antisocial behaviour,

police and other agencies are using new tactics

and technology where the bad guys get caught in the act.

Brilliant footage. Police officers love CCTV.

Local councils, shops and businesses are laying some traps of their own.

As soon as he walked into the picture I knew who he was.

And the general public, too, can help unsuspecting crooks get their comeuppance.

-We definitely needed proof.

-You're not going to get away with it,

you might as well pack up.

It made him swallow his pride, it was brilliant.

So, anyone who is up to no good had better think twice.

They might just get caught red-handed.

Today...

CCTV cameras show an armed hold-up in a quiet town.

A violent attack on a lone shop assistant.

I don't think I've ever seen anybody sob

the way she was sobbing that morning.

But a shocking twist to the tale lies hidden

in the frames of this film.

Also, today...

a woman takes a trip back to her hometown

and finds herself the target of a street robber.

I never realised I could scream so loudly and for so long.

But some local heroes rushed to help her.

I didn't think I had it in me to do that.

And... This drunk driver's had a lot more than one for the road.

He's taking a high-speed tour round Bristol's one-way system

the wrong way.

Alford in Lincolnshire,

this close-knit town is rocked by news of a violent armed robbery.

It was a horrific incident.

In the early hours of the morning

a shop assistant is threatened by a masked man.

With a knife held to her throat, she is forced to open the safe

and is then beaten, bound up and left terrified on the floor.

She was just distraught, she was hysterical, almost.

Crying, sobbing...

Police mount a major search for the vicious attacker.

That day, every detective that was available

was working purely on that crime.

It's all been recorded on CCTV, but everything is not quite as it seems.

After a shocking discovery by the police,

everything will be called into question

by a truly extraordinary turn of events.

Sgt Becky Fowler is based at Louth police station in Lincolnshire.

But recently, she was taken back to her home village of Alford

where she had to deal with an unusual robbery at this store.

It was unusual because things don't happen in Alford.

I actually grew up in the village and it's a very small market town,

everybody knows everybody else.

So, to have something of this level of violence

and seriousness was very unusual.

It's 5:30am on a Sunday morning in January.

Whilst most are in bed, 16-year-old Jessica is off to do her paper round

at a nearby shop.

She gets a lift in from her mum, Tracy.

I always drive her in because we live five miles outside of Alford

and I go in and I help her with filling the papers.

That morning, council CCTV cameras shows Tracy and Jessica arriving

outside the shop, as usual.

But today, the pair noticed something's different.

Normally, we would walk up t'door and have to tap on the door

for somebody to come and let us into the store,

but that morning, the actual front door was off the latch.

-So, we walked straight in...

-And straight into a shocking scene.

One of the regular shop assistants is hunched over a table.

She was just distraught, she was hysterical, almost.

Crying, sobbing...

and then I recognised that she'd got tag ties round both her wrists.

She couldn't tell me what had happened.

I'm a nurse and we deal with death and bereavement

and I don't think I've ever seen anybody sob

the way she was sobbing that morning. It was heartbreaking.

Jessica goes to get a chair for the woman.

And when she sat down, we realised she'd got tag ties

round her legs, as well.

And when Jessica came back out of the office, she said to me,

she said, "The office is an absolute mess, Mam."

Tracy dials 999. The shop assistant can be heard sobbing

in the background.

She looked like she was in pain

and she'd got bruising down the side of her head,

which looked like either somebody had thumped her or kicked her.

Thank God I go with my daughter, is what I felt,

because she was 16 and to have walked into that on her own,

I don't know how she would have coped with it.

If we'd have been five minutes earlier,

we both could have been involved in it.

You know, for the last year, we'd seen that lady on regular occasions.

So, to find her like that was quite distressing, really.

The shop assistant is taken to hospital for a check over.

On duty that morning, Becky launches the police investigation.

Although it's a small town, we have town CCTV in Alford.

-We immediately start reviewing CCTV.

-And this is what they see.

At 5:20am, the man in light trousers cycles up past the store,

then disappears off-camera.

Less than a minute later, the woman shop assistant's car

approaches the shop.

Parking nearby, she gets out and goes to unlock the door.

The hooded man in light trousers creeps up behind her, he pounces.

The shop CCTV shows him holding a knife to her throat,

demanding to be let in.

Even though the woman is not left badly hurt after this incident,

the images on the store's CCTV are distressing to watch.

Bundled in, the intruder marches her through to the back office.

Heading straight to the safe, she unlocks it

and shows him the contents.

He put the knife down on the counter, then hauls her away...

with a flurry of kicks and punches.

The masked robber binds her hands with a cable tie...

and then her feet.

He starts bundling the banknotes from the safe into his rucksack,

followed by a box stuffed with bags of coins.

The woman won't stop struggling.

When she tries to get to her feet, we see him kick her backwards...

and set upon her again.

Then he goes back into the shop to start rifling the cigarette shelves.

Finally, the robber comes back to take his knife before leaving

with over £3,000 in cash and many packets of cigarettes.

After he's gone, the assistant eventually wriggles her way

into another room, where she's found by Tracy and Jessica.

It was not nice, not nice to find her like that.

For something like that to have happened in Alford is not normal.

You know, it's not the kind of thing you expect in a town like that.

Even the police are shocked.

It was a horrific incident.

It's so rare in... anywhere in Lincolnshire, really.

and so there is that pressure that we've got to protect the public

and we need to deal with this swiftly and find out who's done it.

We would hate for this to happen again anywhere else.

Police haul in a suspect for questioning

and discover there's a bizarre twist to this case

that's worthy of a TV crime drama.

I've never been so gobsmacked in an interview.

Also coming up... Follow that car.

A drunk driver tears around Bristol city centre,

while camera operators try to keep him in their sights,

so police can put the brakes on.

Handbags are a prime target for thieves

because they can be stolen in seconds.

And for Jo, that means a trip down memory lane

will be one she never forgets.

Preston, Lancashire.

A woman is out on a nostalgic stroll back in her old home town.

But her trip back in time turns to terror

when she gets some unwelcome company.

I didn't realise at the time that he was sizing up victims,

but apparently he was.

A CCTV camera catches the moment the man launches a ruthless attack.

I never realised I could scream so loudly.

He's after her bag, but she's not giving up without a fight.

He's not having it, he's not having it.

But help is on the way from some brave townspeople.

You have to intervene.

Right, we going to get this guy, you know,

this is wrong and he's going to have to pay for it.

The city of Preston, Lancashire, has been around since Roman times.

The city has a proud history

and it plays an important part in Jo's own personal history, too.

She considers Preston to be her hometown

having spent a great deal of her childhood there.

She revisited it recently to research her family tree.

I'd been to the Lancashire archives that morning

and I had a little bit of time before I was going to the cemetery.

So, I took a little tour around the old buildings where my church was

that I used to go to when I was a child.

I was christened in there and my mum and dad were married there.

It must have been, maybe, 55 years since I'd been there.

Maybe she should have left it a little bit longer.

Jo's day is about to take a dramatic turn,

as it will for two to other people in Preston that day.

George, who is working, as usual in an electrical store...

I went in to the yard at the rear of the building with a customer

to check some equipment...

and teacher, Damian, who's out with his girlfriend, Nikki.

I was just walking into town to meet friends and it was a nice day,

so, I just thought we'll have a walk into the city centre.

But this pleasant Preston afternoon starts to go wrong

when Jo pays a visit to her old church.

I was just walking around these buildings

enjoying a bit of nostalgia...

What happens next is captured by surveillance cameras

on the outside of George's electrical store.

Here's Jo walking past the church.

A man starts to walk closely behind her, uncomfortably close.

She instinctively steps out to let him go past.

I didn't realise at the time that he was sizing up victims,

he was just a man in the street that I passed.

She takes a detour to look down a side road.

The man carries on up the street, but stops and loiters around

before disappearing from view.

In the meantime, Jo gets back onto the main street again

and walks past the entrance to George's electrical store.

While Jo pauses to study her surroundings the man reappears.

This time Jo hasn't seen him.

Then, just before they go out of camera shot,

he suddenly makes a grab at her,

dragging her into the road, attempting to rip her bag away.

The first I knew of it, I felt his hands around my neck and shoulders

and he just pulled me to the ground.

I came down with and a bang and he was dragging me along

and scraped my elbow.

The mugger's picked his victim, but he's picked the wrong one.

I'm holding on to my bag and he's pulling for all he's worth

and I'm saying to myself, "He's not having it, he's not having it,"

all the time I was screaming my head off.

I never realised I could scream so loudly and for so long.

Meanwhile, Damian's walking nearby with his girlfriend.

I could hear some screaming, there was a lady struggling

to keep her handbag.

George and a customer he's serving also hear Jo.

The moment I actually heard the scream it was quite frightening,

it was almost like a "someone's coming to kill me" scream.

and we went out towards the gate to check.

All this time, Jo is locked in a terrifying tug-of-war

with her attacker.

His grip on my handbag lessened and he ran away.

That's because the mugger has seen that Damien is coming after him.

You have to intervene.

George and Damien are in hot pursuit.

He told me what had happened.

Right, we're going to get this guy, you know, this is wrong.

While the two men joined forces to chase the mugger,

Damien's girlfriend, Nikki, goes to comfort Jo.

A young lady came to help me up off the ground

and to retrieve my possessions,

which were scattered all over the place.

The robber has now legged it down this side road,

but Damien and George are hot on his heels.

I didn't think I could run as fast as I could

and I'm not terribly fit person.

I didn't think I had it in me to do that.

The mugger runs into a residential area.

This is where me and the other gentlemen split up,

he went left, I went right.

I had no idea what was going to happen.

I just thought, "If I could catch up with him

and try and sort of pen him in somewhere..."

And that's exactly what happens.

Running into a cul-de-sac, the thief finds himself fenced in.

he couldn't get any further, so he just stopped here

and this is where I caught up for him and the other colleague

came from the other side of the buildings here.

-He couldn't get away.

-I approached him and I thought,

"What am I doing?" and then just grabbed him by the arm.

-And he didn't react.

-He just came quietly, basically.

The police arrived to take over and when they searched the man

they make a chilling discovery.

It turns out he had a Stanley knife in his pocket.

So, I was mightily relieved that he hadn't used it.

Until now, Jo hasn't seen the footage leading up to her attack.

He's behind me.

Oh, my God. Oh, he's so close.

Look, he drags me off the pavement onto the road.

It's shorter than I expected, it seemed like an eternity.

Really creepy.

When 38-year-old Stephen O'Connor appears in court

he pleads guilty to possession of a weapon and attempted robbery.

He's jailed for three years.

For their efforts in helping Jo - George, David, and Nikki

are presented with certificates of bravery by Lancashire Constabulary.

I don't feel like I've performed any, sort of, brave heroic act,

I just feel like I've done what anybody ought to do,

it's the right thing to do in that situation.

I came across a very bad person,

but there must have been six, eight, nine, ten people

who were very good to me. So, I have to put that in the balance.

She was a very feisty lady, I think she would put up

-a really good fight with anybody.

-She's probably the bravest

out of the lot of us on the day.

She's had a bad experience visiting her old haunts,

but Jo's not going to let it haunt her.

I've been back to the old school building since

and it hasn't upset me at all.

He didn't win that day and he chose the wrong person.

It's great that Damien and George came to Jo's aid,

but if we ever found ourselves in her situation,

what's the best thing to do?

Please don't hang onto your bag, you know.

I know there is stuff in there that's important to you and valuable

and it's a real inconvenience, but your safety has to come first.

The more confident you are, the less likely you are to be attacked.

If someone tries to engage you in conversation, asks for the time,

asks for a light, it's always best to ignore them, walk confidently past.

Take yourself to a location where you feel safe,

where there are lots of people, it's well lit.

If you get a sense that there's somebody there that is paying too much attention to you,

have a look back, have a look at them.

That will put them off, because they don't want to be recognised.

In the unfortunate event that an attack does take place,

the best thing that you can do is to alert other people,

perhaps a scream or a shout, so that other people can come to your aid.

Road safety now and the ever watchful eyes

of city's CCTV operators.

When they join forces with police patrols,

they can not only catch criminals but dangerous drivers too.

It's just after midnight and CCTV camera operators in Bristol

noticed this silver Audi being driven erratically.

They alert police and track its journey

and not a moment too soon.

Confused by the road layout, the driver turns a one-way street

into a wrong-way street.

Thankfully, avoiding any collisions, he then pulls into a cul-de-sac.

Perhaps he's made an honest mistake and now he's come to his senses.

Well, maybe not.

As he speeds back out into the city centre

it looks like he's actually choosing to drive

against the flow of traffic.

He clips a taxi and the cab driver stops in shock.

The Audi's not stopping though.

It continues its reckless route round Bristol's one-way system

in the wrong direction. Can't he see the road arrows?

The camera operators direct police

and a patrol car is soon on its tail.

But the Audi keeps going almost causing a head-on collision.

That was a close call.

Thankfully, this demolition derby ends before someone gets hurt.

The driver abandons his vehicle in the road and makes a run for it.

A police officer and rugby tackles the man to the ground. Game over.

This dangerous driver was well over the legal alcohol limit.

Frighteningly, he had been planning to drive all the way home

to Salisbury, an hour and a half away.

Instead, he took a trip to court

and received a 12 month suspended jail sentence

and disqualified from driving for three years.

Now, you'd think once the police had a confession from somebody

that it'd be it. An open and shut case.

But sometimes there's a little more to a story than meets the eye.

Earlier, we saw the CCTV footage of a terrifying armed robbery

in the small town of Alford, Lincolnshire.

With a knife to her throat,

we see a shop assistant forced to open the safe

and then beaten and bound by the masked robber.

After he's gone, the shop assistant is found by a young paper girl, Jessica

and her mum, Tracy.

I don't think I've ever seen anybody sob

the way she was sobbing that morning.

The shop assistant is taken to hospital

and, fortunately, only has bruising after her ordeal.

Sgt Becky Fowler is in charge of the Lincolnshire police investigation.

That level of violence, we don't see anything like that.

That day every detective that was available was working

purely on that crime.

This case is soon to prove one of the most unusual Becky

is ever likely to see, but at the moment there's not much to go on.

The shop assistant thought that the male spoke with a foreign accent,

but other than that, she couldn't give us any description at all

of what he looked like.

The shop assistant mentions that the robber also stole her phone.

This prompts Becky to check with the phone company

to see if it's been used since.

Because of the seriousness of the offence,

the phone work was done as an urgent enquiry.

And this police phone technology is about to be the key

that turns this whole case upside down.

The phone hasn't been used since the robbery,

but what catches Becky's eye is that it was used by the shop assistant

just before the attack.

We could see that two phone calls had been made.

From accessing our police systems,

we were able to identify who that number belonged to.

It's the phone number of a man who's known to the police.

And that then became our prime suspect for the robbery

was that it was actually somebody that she knew.

They wonder why the shop assistant is calling this man

so early on a Sunday morning.

He comes in on the cycle,

the time's 05:19.

The shop assistant's not due at work until six o'clock in the morning.

40 minutes early that day and we thought that was odd.

Becky and her colleague closely review the CCTV footage.

She comes in, she immediately puts in the alarm code

making it easier for the robber and she turns on the lights

without a moment's hesitation.

Could be fear or she was aware of what was going on.

Again, she goes straight to the safe, there's no hesitation,

there's no panic.

Straight to the right key, even. She's not fumbling with the keys

and also, as we can see, the offender puts the knife down.

Again, that wouldn't be what you would expect

someone that's robbing a shop to put their weapon down.

Under stress, people can react strangely,

but in frame by frame analysis, the woman's actions are increasingly puzzling.

He's putting the cable ties on, she's kicking her legs around

and then almost holds them still at the point he puts the ties on.

She's compliant for him, but then after she's been restrained

she starts kicking out again.

Police also find it hard it odd that this appears to be

the longest smash and grab raid ever.

Most people committing crime, they do it as quickly as they can.

He's in the shop for 20 minutes.

Wasting no time, they arrest the male suspect and interview him.

What happens next takes them by surprise.

The opening of his interview says it all, really.

I've never been so gobsmacked in an interview before.

Erm... They say we should always prepare for a "no comment" interview,

but to prepare for someone admitting to a robbery

and then to say that it wasn't quite as it seems,

it was a big surprise.

And the surprises keep coming.

After shopping the shop assistant, the man shows them numbers

written on his hands, he says the woman had given him.

The manager of the shop confirmed that they were the correct

alarm codes for all of the different doors in the newsagents.

The man also tells them where the stolen money

and cigarettes are stashed.

As well as another piece of paper on which he's written the codes down.

So, at that point the interview ended

so that we could recover all that stolen property.

At the same time, they arrest the shop assistant,

but she denies faking the robbery.

She claims, although she is known the man for years,

he's acted alone and hidden his identity.

Could she be innocent after all?

It was difficult, because in the back of your mind

there is always that thought of, "Is she an offender?

"Did she know what was happening? Or, is she a genuine victim?"

The bruises were real,

but the male suspect says this was all part of the shop assistant's

cunning plan to make the raid look convincing.

Becky delves deeper into the pair's phone records

and finds a flurry of exchanged calls

in the weeks leading up to the incident.

Both are charged, yet the woman continues to protest her innocence.

Just crying, just claiming that she was a victim.

But on day one of her trial she changes her plea to guilty.

I felt quite, quite angry towards her

in that, erm... that she almost spoilt the town

and there must have been that doubt,

was it that the police had got it wrong and actually she was a victim?

And so it must have left people quite confused until the trial.

In the end, many local residents feel betrayed,

including Tracy and her daughter Jessica

who found the apparently distraught victim.

I was shocked, actually, that she could have done something like that

knowing that we would find her and to have put myself and my daughter

in that position, you know.

And then to find out that actually it hadn't been real

was like a kick in the guts.

But the pair haven't got away with it.

In court, the would-be robber is sentenced to four months in prison,

suspended for two years.

While the would-be victim, the shop assistant,

gets eight months for conspiracy to steal

and intending to pervert the course of justice,

also suspended for two years.

Unsurprisingly, she also lost her job.

Becky and her colleagues got to the truth of the matter quickly.

Quite early on we knew it wasn't quite as everything seemed.

So, to go with that instinct that there was something not quite right

about it and be proved right, it makes you very proud.

But things are back to normal now and all is well in Alford.

The community couldn't understand why one of their own

would even want to do that, or two of their own

because they were both from the town. You know, what had they gained?

Because they didn't gain anything in the end.

That's it for today. Join us next time when the police

and the public catch more criminals red-handed.