Episode 19 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 just pack up.

It made him swallow his pride. It was brilliant.

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

They might just get caught red-handed.

Today, a one-man crime wave hits a quiet town on Friday the 13th.

It was just greed.

But it's unlucky for him when he picks the wrong person to mug.

He didn't reckon on our victim being so determined.

Also today, the police use their own

technology to defeat the latest tricks

cunning criminals come up with at cashpoints.

They cost pence to make

and they can make the criminals thousands of pounds.

And in the middle of the night,

a man trying to burn down a store finds his plans go up in flames.

The town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire.

It's Friday 13th.

And it's definitely unlucky for anybody in Ashby

who encounters this man.

A stranger in town, he's going on a crime spree.

First, he steals from this barber's.

He's taken liberties with other people's money and lives.

Then he mugs another man in the street.

Whilst he's distracted and he's got his head down,

looking at his wallet, our offender punches him to the head.

Before conning a taxi into becoming his getaway car.

He wanted to rip the taxi driver off as well.

He was a danger to the public.

But this outsider doesn't realise he's been caught on camera

and that his victims, local residents and the police will

team up to make sure he wished he'd never set foot in this town.

Ashby-de-la-Zouch isn't known as a crime hotspot,

but DC Paul Burchell recently had to deal with a visitor

who raised the crime figures all by himself in just one afternoon.

This offender came to Ashby, having travelled 15 miles from Tamworth,

confident in the knowledge he wasn't going to be recognised.

And this is a problem we face in the police force.

The travelling criminal.

And on this fateful Friday the 13th,

the devious day-tripper's first victim will be David's barbershop.

This business started 25 years ago.

Erm, I started it on my own.

We're the most established barbershop now in Ashby.

David's already had an occasional brush with antisocial behaviour.

Over the years, we've had one or two incidents.

Erm, we get windows broken.

And you take it as a personal thing against yourself.

You wonder if you've done a dodgy haircut. You hope that you don't!

But, yeah, things happen and it affects you.

So, for extra security, David has had CCTV installed

and he's glad he has.

It's just gone 2:30 the afternoon

when this man comes into the reception area.

David's cutting a customer's hair in the next room.

The door went, which is not unusual. Somebody came in.

But this man's not here for a short back and sides.

With no-one about, he hangs up his coat to hide the fact

that he is picking the pockets of the other coats on the stand.

I don't think the offender realises this is being captured on CCTV.

Finding nothing in the coats, the man looks behind the counter.

The moment he goes over that counter,

he becomes a trespasser

and this is a far more serious offence than burglary.

Keeping an eye out for any staff, the man searches for cash.

He finds the tin containing the staff's tips

and duly tips THEM into his hands.

You'd think he'd be satisfied at that,

but no, he continues to look.

He's looking for the till.

He's looking for the day's takings.

He realises he's just got petty cash.

But David next door begins to smell, or rather hear, a rat.

We get a tinkling sound in reception.

OK, somebody might get some keys out of their pocket

but this was distinct. I let it go for once but twice is too much.

There's something going on in there.

Hearing David coming his way, the man quickly drops the tin

and picks up a pen.

So, when I went through to the reception, erm,

there's this quite big, erm, guy there,

leaning over a desk dressed in black.

A little bit intimidating, to be honest.

He obviously felt a little bit uneasy.

So, I said to him, "Can I help you?" "Yeah, I want to make an appointment.

"I'm just booking myself in." Having never seen the man before,

David is becoming increasingly suspicious.

So, this guy is telling me he wants an appointment but he's actually

got his coat hanging up, which again doesn't fit with the whole situation.

After making his fictitious appointment, the man then leaves.

When David later discovers the staff's hard-earned tips

are missing, he combs through the CCTV footage for clues.

When you see somebody walking in so brazenly,

we didn't know at the time, but he'd gone through people's pockets,

coats hanging up, they were customers' pockets.

There was my jacket pocket.

He's taken liberties with other people's money and lives.

So, it's offensive. And it's personal.

David calls the police,

and when DC Paul Burchell sees the footage of the burglary,

he notes that the thief has a rather distinctive thatch himself.

Note the wisp of grey hair on the crown of his head,

which obviously assists us in his identification.

It's going to be a bad hair day for this man.

This isn't the only crime he's going to commit today - or the worst.

Later...

He punches a man to steal his cash and causes chaos in the street.

The decision was made, let's have this person in and lock him up

because he was a danger to the public.

Sometimes, despite the best efforts of the authorities,

a crook evades capture.

But sometimes criminals can get their comeuppance in other ways.

It's 4am when this man in a purple tracksuit ambles

up to a local store. It's not open but he doesn't care.

His intention is to commit a particularly nasty crime - arson.

But call it the hand of fate or just plain poetic justice,

this firestarter is about to get a taste of his own medicine.

He breaks in and makes a beeline for the back of the store,

jerry can in hand.

Though this bright spark's about to put himself on the hotspot.

A sudden burst of flame, but it's not gone the way he intended.

Caught up in his own fireball, his left leg is ablaze.

Fuming, the man performs a frantic Flashdance,

desperately trying to put it out.

But he can't and is forced to hotfoot it out of the store -

literally.

The fire brigade were called out minutes later

and had to spend an hour fighting the flames.

The arsonist is probably bearing a few scars from this experience.

But given the serious nature of his crime,

it's hard to feel sorry for him.

When the police catch up with this man,

he'll be having to answer some burning questions.

Coming up...

A brazen burglar strolls into a busy workplace,

posing as a fire safety officer.

He's pretending to check extinguishers

but soon finds he's in the hotspot himself.

And the Friday the 13th thief in Ashby steps up his crime campaign.

But the predator becomes the prey, when his dazed victim bravely

stumbles after his attacker and blocks his escape.

Our poor victim is standing here in the way of the van,

stopping the van from moving forward.

Criminals keep coming up with new devices to try

and get money out of us at cashpoint machines.

Fortunately, the police have a few tricks up their sleeves too.

Holborn in central London - and at cashpoint machines,

two criminals are at work,

using hi-tech tricks to fleece unsuspecting members of the public.

This is their employment. This is what they do for a living.

The way they make money is by stealing from others.

They trap cards in the cash machines using small specialised devices.

They cost pence to make

and they can make the criminals thousands of pounds.

And they fool their victims using distraction techniques.

The victim was surprised that someone that he'd spoken to

had actually been involved in stealing from him.

But the crooks' cards are marked.

With their crimes caught on camera,

police hope to close down this pair's accounts for good.

The city of London is one of the UK's major business

and financial centres.

The Square Mile draws in hundreds of thousands of commuters

and tourists every day. And that, in turn, attracts thieves.

PC Dominic Shaw works for the City of London Police Crime Squad,

a plain-clothes unit.

In the City of London, there was an increasing problem with

theft from ATMs

and subsequent fraudulent use of those bank cards.

Dominic and his fellow officers start regular patrols,

looking for anybody behaving suspiciously near cashpoints.

It'll be people that are hanging around cash machines but not using them.

Looking at each other but pretending not to be together.

You see the same patterns of behaviour,

whereas members of the public

who've not come in contact with ATM fraud

might not be aware of these things.

Dominic is about to become aware

of a prolific pair of cashpoint conmen,

a modern-day hole-in-the-wall gang.

After an early-morning theft at a supermarket cash machine in Holborn,

he checks the store's CCTV footage.

As you can see from the footage, this is a quiet road.

There are a grand total of five people on it,

and two of them are our suspects, who are involved.

And that's why they like this cash machine.

Because they can be there without being seen by too many people,

reducing the risk that they're going to get caught.

They are about two metres from each other

but they're not in communication.

The younger man at the back peels off and goes to the machine.

You can see from this footage that he hasn't got a bank card in his hand,

so he's not trying to make a transaction.

It clearly shows him putting a small black object

into the card receiver slot.

And this is what he puts in - a card trap.

These are what we encounter now.

We used to get card traps that were fitted to the outside of the machine and went in.

These have been more common recently because they're harder to detect.

This simple device sticks inside the card slot of an ATM.

The bank card goes in through the mouth of the trap

and the receiver, and falls into the prongs that come out of the back.

So, as you can see here, the card is in the trap itself.

And when it tries to get pulled out, it gets caught.

They cost pence to make and they can make the criminals hundreds,

thousands of pounds - if they get the right bank account to steal from.

And that's the device that this man is putting into a card machine here.

But how do they actually get the money?

Well, it's a two-man operation, as in this recent case.

When a man walks up to the tampered cashpoint, the accomplice appears.

And here we have the suspect, who watches his PIN number -

just trying to get that view,

to show the victim's hand

putting the PIN in.

And he's happy that he's got it. And he walks away.

And it's taken him ten seconds to see what his PIN is.

He's what is known as a shoulder surfer.

By watching hand movements, he reads the PIN numbers from a distance.

The victim then tries to retrieve his card, unsuccessfully.

Leaving him confused

and believing that his card has been swallowed by the machine.

And that's when our suspect in the black and brown jacket

comes back and speaks to the victim.

He is saying, "Ah, press cancel, press cancel."

Because he's just trying to distract him

from looking at the card receiver slot.

The shoulder surfer then helpfully suggests that the victim

goes into the supermarket to complain.

Whilst he's in the shop, the crook's partner in crime reappears

to retrieve the trap and the card.

With both the man's card and PIN number,

they go straight down the road to another bank.

They've put in the PIN number,

and he's about to take ?120 out of his account.

That was all that our victim could afford to lose from his account.

They've cleaned him out.

Even when the victim knew his money had been stolen,

he didn't realise how until Dominic explained the crook's methods.

I'd say the victim was surprised that someone that he'd spoken to

and had been stood directly next to,

had actually been involved in stealing from him.

And 12 hours later, the duo are back at the same cashpoint,

this time, in different clothes,

targeting a different man but pulling the same routine.

This is what they do, day in day out.

It's like an actor learning his lines, that's what they're doing.

They're taking on a role.

Because you'd have no inclination to suspect this man

and that's what they play on.

The fact that people are trusting in nature.

But it's all about to go wrong for these two,

when Dominic gets a vital clue,

as he pieces together their movements shortly after the theft.

Once the victim's bank provided me with the exact location,

the exact time when the card was misused,

I was able to obtain the footage from that cash machine

and see the suspects involved -

one stealing the money

and the other one just turning up in the background.

The CCTV also covered the side of the building.

They both make their way down Brook Street.

Seconds later, a silver Volvo comes driving up out of Brook Street...

..and turns onto Holborn.

It's no coincidence that that is the first car to come out.

More CCTV enquiries through the city provided

the registration of that car.

The suspects involved in this theft

were the insured drivers of that Volvo.

Dominic then finds that the man in the black jacket has already

been arrested a couple of days previously -

after he was found to be carrying a card trapping device -

an offence in itself.

Yeah, these devices, it's not like a screwdriver or bolt cutters,

which you could claim to use through work.

This is made purely to steal from members of the public.

With the cashpoint thefts now added to his rap sheet,

the man is placed on remand while he awaits trial.

His partner in crime, the shoulder surfer, however, has vanished.

So, Dominic puts him up as wanted on the police national database.

And two months later, he's arrested.

I was very relieved when I took the phone call from the officer.

I think getting caught after you've committed an offence,

months down the line, was a bit of a surprise to him.

And I imagine that he was pretty upset.

Dominic and his team have trapped the card trappers.

In court, both men plead guilty to conspiracy to steal

and other offences.

Both are given 12 months in prison.

Using plain-clothes policing

and increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology,

the authorities are fighting back to keep this type of thief

away from our money.

There is now a greater power of sentencing

when it comes to these offences because it has been acknowledged,

the severity and the organised nature

of the crime and the level of risk

and threat to the members of the public.

And that's why we are able to get these sentences.

In scams of this type, the conmen can be very plausible.

But there are some telltale signs that we can watch out for.

Look for residue or any glue around

the card slot itself.

Make sure it's not protruding.

If in any doubt, and if the machine doesn't look right,

then don't use it.

Thieves will often put cameras above the keypad on the machine itself

to try and view the PIN that's being put in.

It's really important that you cover your PIN

when you're at the cash machine,

because these offenders don't have to be on your shoulder

to be able to read it.

They've got devices and equipment that can help them

to understand your PIN from up to 15 feet away.

So, it's really important that you do everything you can

to safeguard that PIN number.

Try not to have the same number for different cards

because if one card is compromised,

quite often we find that further cards are compromised too.

More importantly than anything is,

if your card gets stuck,

don't leave it.

Because that's what they want you to do.

Contact the bank and they'll sort it out.

That way, you can foil them trying to steal your money.

Thieves and conmen can be so convincing,

they can be hard to spot,

whether it's at a cashpoint, at our own front door or,

as we are about to see, in the office.

Most people would probably think nothing of leaving

their phone on the desk at work.

Especially if they work in an office like this one,

which has a security card entry system.

Well, here's a cautionary tale.

As this receptionist swipes in, she's tailgated by this bloke.

He confidently announces he's here to check the fire extinguishers

and then heads off into the main area.

Scanning left and right as he goes, the self-styled fire officer

doesn't seem to have any idea where the fire extinguishers are.

Wait - maybe he spotted one.

The receptionist, suspicious, watches him.

But neither she nor the cameras can see him

when he picks up this man's mobile off his desk.

Reappearing, he briefly considers continuing the raid.

But then thinks better of it.

He then breezes past the man whose phone he's just nicked,

before announcing to the receptionist, "All done".

The receptionist is now even more suspicious.

Hey! You missed those two.

And when she hears shouts that a smartphone is missing,

she tries to get the thief stopped at the main door.

But it's too late.

When this high quality CCTV footage is handed over to the police,

any hopes he might have of getting away with it

are soon, well, extinguished.

He's quickly identified, found guilty of burglary

and received an 18 month suspended jail sentence.

In the movies, the sheriff and the locals quite often combine

to run the outlaw out of town.

And it can happen in real life too.

When this one-man crimewave rolls in, everyone joins forces.

In the town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire,

it's Friday the 13th.

And this stranger in town is proving to be a horror.

He's already stolen money from David's barbershop.

He's taken liberties with other people's money and lives.

And just minutes after leaving there, he's going

to commit a much more serious crime.

The town centre's CCTV cameras show a man leaving the bank.

He's only recently arrived in the country

and is unaware he's about to be targeted by the thief.

You see the victim exiting the bank

and he crosses the road

and into Brook Street, where we're standing now.

And straight into the path of the barbershop burglar.

Our offender sees the victim is smoking.

So, he goes up to the man

and makes out he's got cigarettes to sell at a cheap price.

He manages to talk the victim to the alleyway opposite.

Agreeing to buy some cigarettes,

the man looks down to pull some money out of his wallet.

He's suddenly punched on the back of the head

and the wallet is ripped from his hands.

The offender chose this alley because it is out of the view

of the general public, so there's no potential witnesses.

But what the robber hasn't banked on

is that sharp-eyed staff in a local shop

have an acute sense of stranger danger.

The staff in the shop were thinking, he's not local to Ashby,

he's acting strange.

And the proprietor of that shop sees our victim approach

the offender and then they go out of view down the alleyway.

It is then when she gets on the radio and alerts the CCTV -

"There's something happened here were not happy with.

"Can you pan your cameras onto these individuals?"

They see the robber coming out of the alleyway

with his dazed victim behind him.

He thought he was strong enough and experienced enough to get away

and get away with this offence.

He didn't reckon on our victim being so determined.

In a bid to get away from his victim,

the robber approaches the driver of a van delivering gas bottles.

He makes out HE'S the one being harassed.

The bemused driver agrees to take him away from trouble,

allowing him to climb in.

But desperate to stop him,

the victim bravely puts himself in front of the moving van.

Our poor victim is standing here in the way of the van,

stopping the van from moving forward.

He's traumatised, he's confused, he's trying to call the police.

Thwarted, the angry robber gets out and starts shouting at his victim.

Then he spots another opportunity to escape

when a taxi pulls up at the junction.

..wondering what all this is all about

and he engages in conversation with the taxi driver.

He is obviously going to ask for a fair.

The robber jumps into the front seat

and the taxi driver unwittingly provides a getaway vehicle

for him to escape, with over ?200 of the victim's money.

Our victim is very upset and confused.

He's had a punch to the head.

Fortunately, we've got these events captured.

Had those ladies not alerted the CCTV,

none of that would have been captured.

That was vital, that that happened, and we were very grateful.

The taxi numberplate is recorded on the footage

and the driver is this man, Tariq, a hard-working father of four.

And it turns out he's also a victim of this criminal.

I couldn't really say no to him.

He sat in and said, "Can you please help me?

"You know, I'm going to beat that guy up.

"He's my brother-in-law and he's really, really winding me up."

He was quite a big guy as well.

I wasn't aware that he was involved in anything,

otherwise I would have stopped the taxi there and then, you know?

The man tells Tariq to take him to Tamworth, 15 miles away.

When they get there, he asks to stop at this pub,

saying he needs to pick something up from a friend.

About 12, 13 minutes had gone,

straight in - and straight OUT - the rear entrance without paying Tariq.

He just conned a free ride, basically.

The total loss would be about 80, ?90.

80, ?90 in the week is quite a lot.

It's very hard to take sometimes.

Tariq makes a complaint about the man to the police.

Had he not done the taxi,

we might not have got the evidence that we needed. So, it's just greed.

Paul now knows his quarry has got out in Tamworth

and is likely to be from the area.

He collects the pub's CCTV, taking it along with the footage

recorded in Ashby town centre, to the local police station.

I invited one of their officers to view it.

And she said, "I know this person."

And they were delighted because he is a thorn in their side.

He is a prolific offender.

But even though his face and distinctive shock of grey hair

is all over footage from three separate crime scenes,

Espie denies it's him.

And he agrees to take part in a police identification parade.

He knows the system.

And he knows that there's always the chance

that some of our key witnesses wouldn't have picked him out.

They don't always remember the person for various reasons.

Sometimes they are in shock. So, he's going to ride his luck.

Unfortunately for him, the taxi driver picked him out,

as did the victim.

And it was crucial evidence.

Robert Espie is prosecuted.

As a prolific offender, he is placed on remand until his trial.

The decision was made, let's have this person in

and lock him up, because he was a danger to the public.

When he appears in court, Espie is found guilty of robbery,

burglary and fare avoidance and is sentenced to 44 months imprisonment.

This is an excellent example of the local business community

and public, in conjunction with the CCTV operators, helping the police.

And the unlucky victims of Espie's Friday the 13th spree can count

their good luck that he won't be back on the streets any time soon.

I must say, it was quite a relief.

Because I wondered if he would ever come back.

Friday the 13th was his unlucky day.

That's it for today.

Join us next time when the police

and the public catch more criminals red-handed.