Episode 9 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,

the police and other agencies are using new tactics

and technology where the bad guys actually 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 the 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's up to no good had better think twice.

They might just get Caught Red Handed.

Today, a father and son team up to make a film.

But it's not just a home movie, it's a crime thriller,

and this thief has the leading role.

Also today, a burglary epidemic in a London suburb

and police prescribe a special treatment.

They issue 1,000 households with bottles of traceable liquid

then wait for the burglars to come and take their medicine.

And best not be a have-a-go hero, say the police,

but this shop worker couldn't have been listening

as he body slams an armed robber.

The living room of a family home in Lisburn, Northern Ireland.

This is a home video that's being taken by a man called Norman.

Norman is filming his father,

but he's not just recording happy family moments.

These pictures show the two of them laying a trap.

This detective duo are out to catch a thief.

We couldn't believe it, it's just continual attack,

day after day after day.

Money is going missing.

They're pretty sure they know who's taking it

and it's not a professional burglar

but a trusted carer who helps to look after Norman's mother, Innis.

When that trust is shattered in such a way as this,

it hurts ten times more, you know?

Norman grew up with his parents in Lisburn,

south-west of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

He's now living over 100 miles away in Wicklow,

but he regularly comes back to visit his mum and dad.

They first met each other and married in Lisburn.

1960, they got married.

I didn't come along until '63.

Only child, and spoiled rotten.

His mum, Innis, worked in a local cake shop.

I used to love coming home from school

and have a sausage roll and a cup of coffee.

But Mum would always be there with a big smile,

and everybody loved coming into the shop to see her.

They're a close-knit family.

I got to spend a lot of time with Dad through all the school holidays,

so I'd go in and help him at work,

so it was just a very close family, you know?

But, unfortunately,

in later years his mother begins to develop Alzheimer's.

Dad would be looking after Mum more and more and more

as the time went along.

Every month or two he'd have five or ten minutes

where Mum comes back to the real world,

and he lives for those five or ten-minute segments,

where he can have her back, just for a wee chat.

But then she'll be away with the Alzheimer's again, you know.

But as time goes on,

the workload becomes too difficult for Norman's father,

who has also suffered ill health

following an accident many years ago.

Norman supports them as best he can,

but it's impossible to be there every day.

His father contacts an agency and takes on a part-time carer.

It appears to be the answer to their problem.

She started working just before Christmas,

and seemed to be getting on very, very well with Mum.

She would get her up from bed and into the shower,

get her dressed ready for the day.

Everything was going great, you know?

But when Norman arrives on New Year's Day

his father gives him some shocking news.

My dad said to me, "Look, I think the carer's stealing,"

and I said, "What makes you think that?"

And he'd set up £60 in his wallet that morning

and, when the carer had left the house

after doing her wee bit of work,

he counted the money and there was only 40 left.

Having become suspicious,

his father has purposely left his wallet out as bait.

This lady is in a position of trust,

so he can't believe that straight away.

He has to go and look and see if it's right or not, you know.

After talking it over,

they realise they need evidence to show the police.

So father and son turn detective and hatch a plan.

I'd taken a couple of minutes of video the previous Christmas,

so I knew that old camera was lying somewhere around the house,

so I went and dug it out and I charged it up.

First thing the next morning, Norman hides his old video camera

on top of a cupboard, just in the nick of time.

I ran upstairs because she arrived as we were setting up

and I stayed in the room above the living room absolutely quiet.

The two of them have counted the money in the wallet

and left it on the mantelpiece.

The carer enters and takes off her coat.

She goes to see Innis, Norman's mum.

11 minutes later she's back

and picks up a logbook to fill out her timesheet.

All the while, the wallet sits next to the clock.

First it's there...

..now it's gone.

A moment later the carer puts the wallet back,

places her signed timesheet on the table and leaves.

Once she left, we were down the stairs to see

if we could watch it back on the telly, you know.

It makes distressing viewing,

and when they checked the wallet £20 is missing,

but the video also exposes another cause of concern -

the time the carer spends looking after Norman's mum.

It's supposed to be half an hour, not 11 minutes.

Money can be replaced, but if Mum's not getting

the proper care and attention she needs,

then all the money in the world won't replace her, you know.

The video evidence is good,

but Norman and his father realise it's not good enough.

There is no shot of the carer actually taking the money.

They're going to have to try again.

We didn't want her back in the house,

we didn't want her near my mum, but we had to bring her back in

until we got the shot of her with the money in her hand.

They decide to double their chances

and dash to Belfast to buy another, smaller spy camera

they can hide somewhere else in the room.

It's sort of like a James Bond spy thing, disguised as a pen.

The set another trap, but this time from two angles.

Norman also keeps a video log of what they're up to.

He puts the old camcorder back into position

and then goes upstairs to wait.

The carer arrives and comes into their living room.

The first thing she does is walk over to an armchair

where Norman's father has left a pair of his trousers.

She quickly feels the pockets to see if there's anything in them.

Then goes to help Innis.

She returns just ten minutes later to sign her timesheet to show

she's done 30 minutes' work.

Then she picks up the wallet on the mantelpiece...

..helps herself to a £20 note,

puts everything else back

and turns out the light as she leaves.

Norman and his dad rush down to see what they caught on tape

and discover a new development.

It looks like money has been going missing from two places.

She'd taken the 20 from the wallet,

but she had gone to the trousers, first of all.

If Dad had lost money at Christmas, it would have been from the trousers.

They have now recorded one quick shot of the woman

stealing cash from the wallet,

but they want to prove that she takes from the trousers, as well.

Once more, they set up a sting.

They're deliberately using an elastic band

in the hope that it gets them a clearer shot

of the money being taken.

She has to bring it out of the trousers to count it

in full view of the camera.

Then we know that we have her nailed.

Hopefully for the last time,

the bait's planted and cameras are at the ready.

The two retreat upstairs.

In comes the carer.

She immediately heads to the trousers and starts rifling.

Because the notes are held together by the rubber band,

she has to take the whole wad of cash out of the pocket

straight in front of the camera.

She steals some of the money and puts the rest back.

15 minutes later, after she's gone,

Norman and his father count the money.

Two twenties have been stolen.

Norman calls the police and shows them this footage.

They arrest the carer straight away.

She denies everything.

If we had went with just my dad's word,

she would have got away with everything.

The police officer then informed her there was a video evidence,

so she was caught red-handed, so she had to actually admit it.

In court, the woman pleads guilty

and is sentenced to six months in prison,

suspended for 18 months.

But the bad experience takes its toll.

Norman's father can't face any more outside help in his house

and, for a while, Innis goes to live in a care home.

But eventually that proves to be unsettling for the whole family.

To be honest with you, he was doing more running around

when she was in the care home than when she was at home.

His father decides to look after Innis himself again.

Norman and his wife agree it's for the best and insist on helping.

One of them will drive over to stay each week.

Norman's with his father when they go to pick up his mum.

They went in and he insisted that he brought his wife home,

and I'm walking down the corridor behind them

with my mum's bags and what have you,

and I can hear him whistling the theme music from The Great Escape

as he's walking out the door. HE LAUGHS

Coming up, it says on the charity tin "Help for Heroes",

not "help yourself"

so this thief is making a lot of enemies.

I was so angry that somebody has got

the audacity to come in and do that. I took that personally.

And this pub landlady gets thousands of people

to take it personally, too, to shame then name the thief.

Also coming up,

police launch an operation to catch burglars in London,

even though the crooks may argue.

Couldn't be me, officer, I wasn't there,

you've got the wrong man this time.

Oh, no, they haven't.

But first, it's 1:30am in a convenience store.

A hooded man bursts in, aims a gun at the cashier

and demands the money from the till.

But, to his surprise, the cashier bravely grabs the weapon

and a struggle starts.

While a customer gets out of the way sharpish,

this member of staff has other ideas.

In a move any wrestler would be proud of,

the cashier body slams the gunman to the floor

and restrains him until the police arrive.

The gunman is charged with attempted robbery and possession of a firearm.

Police usually advise not to have a go ourselves,

but this shop worker seems to have the situation pretty well covered,

including the thief.

We're used to undercover cops from the movies we watch,

but these days the police are using undercover goods

and even houses to fool the thieves.

Now, what we are looking at here

is the careful preparation of some bait.

There is no rod, reel or line needed,

just a tempting a selection of goodies designed to land a big fish.

We put our lure in the water in the right place at the right time

and we waited for a bite.

This special liquid is not only useful for netting the thieves,

it can help stop them wriggling afterwards.

You know the sort of thing.

It couldn't be me, officer, I wasn't there,

you've got the wrong man this time.

The police have recently used this type of bait,

together with a special house and some surveillance equipment,

to tackle the spate of burglaries

that were the scourge of a London borough.

Every one burglary is one too many.

Is this the one that got away?

Or is he well and truly hooked?

Detective Superintendent Simon Rose of the Metropolitan Police

heads up a burglary unit in the Borough of Brent,

and they've seen an alarming rise in the number of burglaries

in part of their patch, Harlesden.

On a weekly basis we look at levels of burglary,

but also we look at an annual picture -

where are the glowing red spots on the map where there is most crime?

Harlesden was a perennial hotspot for burglary for us.

Simon launches a campaign

to reduce the number of burglaries in Harlesden.

He knows from personal experience the serious impact

home break-ins can have on victims.

I've been burgled, as well.

I know what it feels like to be burgled, it's a horrible violation.

It's not just the damage, it's not just the repair,

it's not just the fear of, "Is someone still inside?"

when you turn up and find your front door's been forced open.

Roger, his wife and daughter live in Brent.

It's generally speaking a very friendly neighbourhood,

and there is, I would say,

95% harmony in the majority of what happens in this area.

But one morning,

Roger discovers how a burglary can shatter that peace and harmony.

I came down and I went to get my breakfast ready in the kitchen,

and I brought it into the living room,

and I realised instantly something was wrong.

I couldn't put a finger on it.

Then I heard the sound of traffic, and I looked around the living room,

I realised that the front window, one of the front windows was open.

Cash and small items have disappeared.

Roger realises they've had a break in.

He goes back upstairs to the bedroom

where his wife is still sleeping.

And found markings on the open window on my side of the bed,

and realised that that's how they must have got in.

The burglar had climbed in through the bedroom window

and crept right past them while they slept.

It's a frightening thought.

We felt that everything about our privacy,

er, was completely damaged by the arrival and departure of this person.

My precious family were all of them at risk.

My wife particularly has been affected in the longer term

by the shock of this event, and she still feels very nervous,

erm, in certain situations around the home, and that she will still,

I think, probably continue to feel that for very many years to come.

To help stop other residents becoming victims like Roger,

the police begin their planned attack on the burglaries.

They mean business and use every method they have at their disposal.

One approach is to try to actually catch burglars in the act.

For this, they decide secretly to borrow a house from a local landlord

and turn it into an undercover trap.

If the police were to have a capture house next to where I live, erm,

I would expect that I wouldn't know anything about it.

It looks just like any other home, but it's been fitted with

hidden cameras, sensors

and some well-chosen bait that will appeal to a burglar.

A burglar doesn't want to be walking out the road

with a 72 flat inch screen TV,

cos not only will he be walking very slowly,

but it will, you know, attract an enormous amount of attention.

It's small, it's portable, it's the watches, the jewellery, the cash.

And that's not all.

This valuable bait is being tagged

with an invisible, traceable liquid.

The traceable liquid is a chemical fingerprint,

if you like, uniquely linking that watch to that address.

Every time that burglar in that house touches anything or

walks through a doorway where we could put a spray onto him,

that is an opportunity for us to get traceable liquid on him,

to categorically prove at a later date

he was in that house at that time stealing that goods.

And Simon and his team will get an immediate alert message

from a sensor if there's a break in.

We switched it on, and then fingers crossed.

But the capture house is only one part of their campaign

to stop the burglars.

Alongside some traditional policing methods,

they decide to try something unusual.

Simon and his team create a saturation zone.

They give out 1,000 bottles of the traceable liquid to local households

so they can all mark their own properties.

And then the police let potential thieves know what's going on

in a new and imaginative way.

It is a reasonably established fact

that people with substantial addictions

to heroin and other drugs are more likely to be burglars and thieves.

What we did is, one of the ideas of the detective sergeants,

we got some chemist bags, so that when anyone collects their

prescription from this chemist,

which was right in the middle of the saturation zone,

they would come and collect their prescription,

into the bag it would go, and they would leave the chemist with

a free bit of advertising, saying, "Thieves and burglars beware.

"This is a traceable liquid area and we will catch you."

Just a short time into the operation

and a sensor is triggered at the specially rigged house.

The first time, you think, "Is this a false alarm?

Has the power in the device died?

Has a cat gone through the window?"

Well, not so much a cat as a cat burglar.

It's almost midnight, and this intruder's eyes have alighted on

the valuables left on offer.

And helpfully for the police,

he's right in front of one of their cameras.

Among the items he takes are a games console and a watch.

Shortly after he leaves the house, he is arrested.

We found him wearing the watch.

We also found the clothing that he was wearing.

It was stained with the traceable liquid product, erm, and that was

quite nice cos when we were bringing him in through custody,

we have a UV system whereby the UV light goes on,

and he lit up like a Christmas tree.

And you can see from my small torch, there's the, er,

the bright green of the traceable liquid glowing on the jacket.

That proves beyond all reasonable doubt he was our burglar.

The man pleads guilty

when he finds out whose house it is he's burgled.

When you hear the victim's the Metropolitan Police service,

you've got a bit of an idea you've been caught.

The man is convicted of three burglaries

and one attempted burglary.

Just 72 hours after he burgled the house,

he starts a 30-month stretch in prison.

And that's something we're very pleased with, cos every day

he's in prison that's one less person being burgled in Brent.

It's a good result for the police and the neighbourhood,

and this whole police campaign in Harlesden

proves to be a great success.

The level of burglary in that area in the first nine months

dropped by 81%.

And that's over 70 victims of burglary that weren't victims

as a result of the trap house and the traceable liquid product,

and that's something we're delighted with.

Simon and his colleagues managed to reduce the number of burglaries

by a staggering amount,

but sadly there will always be some people out there who target homes.

So what can we do to protect our property?

You can avoid your house being a target for burglary

if you follow simple safety measures like lock your doors,

lock your windows, think about what security systems you have.

You may want to invest in an alarm, or CCTV,

which is really easy to purchase now and quite reasonable,

and that acts as a real deterrent to any thief.

Something simple as a motion sensor light,

so that once you come onto the property,

then the light shines on and it scares the perpetrator away.

Or if you've marked your property with a traceable liquid, you put a

sticker in your window and that also acts as a deterrent to that thief.

You've heard that saying, "Honour amongst thieves."

Well, I'm not convinced by that one.

But you would have to be really dishonourable to steal

charity donations, wouldn't you?

Or so you'd think.

Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport in Greater London.

This is the Sun pub,

known for its warm atmosphere.

But this man is about to commit a particularly cold hearted act.

He's come to steal a charity tin full of money for injured soldiers.

I was so angry. I was absolutely devastated that somebody has got

the audacity to come in and do that. I took that personally.

And the landlady of the Sun doesn't want the thief to get away with it.

She starts an internet campaign, and gets not just one or two people,

but over 13,000, to help her expose the culprit.

Helen manages the Sun pub in Hounslow.

She's lived on the premises here for 17 years,

having taken the pub over from her father.

I grew up in the pub trade.

My father before me was a publican all his life.

Obviously very well known and very well respected man.

Erm, he taught me everything I know, really.

Her father has now sadly passed away,

but Helen still keeps his traditions.

It's a friendly pub with no need for a bouncer on the door.

You don't have to look over your shoulder

every time somebody comes in the door.

It's absolutely a community.

Erm, my youngest daughter, she works here, erm,

so it is family orientated.

And if there's a rare spot of bother,

Helen can usually handle it herself.

I think the last big crime we had here was a mobile phone got stolen

off a table, and the CCTV caught the person that done it,

and the next time this chap came in for a drink, and I said,

"You've got two days to bring the phone back

"or I'm giving your picture to the, on the CCTV, to the police,

"and they'll be coming after you." And he brought the phone back.

Helen is keen on raising money for charity.

She has a fountain that customers throw money into.

And with an army barracks nearby,

there's one cause that's particularly close to her heart.

Help For Heroes was personal.

My children's father is a Grenadier Guard, and he's served his full time,

retired at the age of 40,

and also my son-in-law is ex-military.

So it was kind of close to home.

The locals here are generous, and the charity tins fill up quickly.

So, just to be on the safe side, Helen chains them to the bar.

I wouldn't leave my wallet on the bar

and anywhere that I go, not even at home,

so I certainly wouldn't leave a box full of money unchained on a bar.

But one morning, Helen notices there's something amiss.

I came down the stairs,

and I've been here so long I know where everything is.

It took me a minute to register, charity box is gone.

She immediately checks the recordings

from her security cameras.

The charity tins are sitting on the bar.

A man walks in and strikes up a friendly conversation

with the barmaid.

When she goes to serve another customer,

he sidles over to the tins and picks one up.

He's checking how much is in it, and it's full.

The man leaves,

but a short while later he's back,

this time with a pair of pliers.

He casually snips the chain

and strolls out with a tin under his arm. Helen's horrified.

I was so angry.

People work hard for raising money for charity in this pub,

and it is personal.

And to have some guy come in and just help themselves to what

other people have donated is just wrong.

Helen's seething,

and she thinks the public will feel the same way,

so she calls on their help to catch the thief.

First off, I put a picture of this guy on a website, on the internet,

on a social media site, erm, "Does anybody know this chap?"

And explained what he had done.

At first, word goes out to locals via social media.

But Helen's appeal soon spreads further around the internet.

We had a visit then from a couple of young soldiers from the barracks,

just to express to us how devastated they were for us

that that had happened, and if there was anything they could do

to support us in finding him, that they would.

The campaign is successful, and the man is identified.

Within literally a couple of hours I had his name,

his address, his mobile phone number, details about him...

Realising that there are now a lot of people very angry

at what this man has done, Helen hands his details over to the police

so they can get hold of him as quickly as possible.

We got to him before anybody else could -

fortunately for this fella, cos I don't rate his chances if

he'd have been caught by the general public,

with the emotions running so high.

The man is arrested.

And after spending a night in the cells, he pleads guilty.

But he'd better not choose the Sun pub as his local from now on.

If he was to walk into the pub right now,

I'd like to think that I'm older, wiser and responsible enough

to take him by the elbow and escort him out and say,

"You're not welcome."

Maybe the shame of having his face planted all over the internet

might make this man think twice before stealing again.

Helen is impressed by the power of social media.

There was over 13,000 hits, and they were mostly local. Mostly local.

But I've got friends in America

and also they put on there "Let's take this global!"

and things like that. It was quite funny, really.

But in the same breath, the amount of care that came from people

that we didn't even know was phenomenal.

That's it for today. Join us next time,

when police and the public will be catching more criminals red handed.