Episode 12 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,

so the bad guys get caught in the act.

-CCTV is gold dust.

-Great evidence for the police.

Got to have them stopped.

Local councils, shops and businesses

are laying some traps of their own...

The Eureka moment when you get that evidence...

..and the general public, too,

can help unsuspecting crooks get their comeuppance.

-People won't stand by.

-I couldn't sit back and do nothing.

Yes! We've got her.

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

They might just get Caught Red Handed.

Today, a masked armed robber in the high street...

When I first turned round and saw that he'd got

a gun in his hand, I didn't really have much time to think.

..but this gunman gets more than he bargained for...

I went for the hand with the gun, you know.

..with a shocking result.

But it fired.

Also today, a family's best friend is dognapped...

SHE SIGHS

I just cannot even think about not having Charlie, at all.

I felt sick, upset, angry.

..but a nationwide network of pet detectives sets out

to collar the thief.

And this shady pair of thieves hide handfuls of fashionable,

stylish sunglasses in a very unstylish fashion.

A jewellery shop in Barnstaple, Devon.

The owner, David, is working on his own when a masked robber bursts in.

Claiming he has a gun, he orders David to fill up a bag.

He was a bit scary-looking.

He had a full latex mask on, which made him look a bit like a cyborg.

And it's then, 71-year-old David makes a snap decision.

He doesn't believe the man has a gun

and reaches for a baseball bat he keeps in case of attack.

But David's made a mistake, because the robber does have a gun.

There's a desperate struggle and then...

the gun fires twice.

It's the kind of call that you never really want to hear -

two shots fired in Barnstaple high street.

Barnstaple is a busy market town

and shopping centre in North Devon.

David and his family have lived in the area for nearly 30 years.

He's been a jeweller most of his life

and opened this particular store three years ago.

It's a family business.

My daughter-in-law, she was my first employee when she was 17.

So, I've seen her progress over all the years.

With a passion for antiques, David is a familiar figure

bidding at auction houses around the area.

I enjoy it. Sourcing various things, especially antique jewellery.

That's the buzz, always looking for the next, the next thing,

you know, the next deal, shall we say, yeah.

David's life now is a far cry from his youth,

spent in tough areas of south London.

I was brought up, you know, in a, sort of, a poor situation.

I have no brothers and sisters. I've always had to fend for myself.

I was a mod and used to go down and have all these

weekends down in Margate and Brighton,

having fights and things with the rockers and stuff, at the time.

David's days as a bit of a bovver boy are long past,

but he still knows how to defend himself.

And in the jewellery trade, there's always the threat of trouble.

Jewellers are, obviously, the main target for any

smash and grab, or armed robbery and there's probably not that many

shops that have not been attempted to be robbed in the past.

David's daughters-in-law was once caught up in a raid

when she was working at another jeweller's.

I think there was three or four of them in the shop

and they were robbed and tied up and everything.

And they took, quite a, obviously, a large amount of stock.

So, as well as electronic security, David's always felt happier

with a bit of extra protection in the shop, a baseball bat.

I've never had to use one in the past, you know, I mean,

it would have to be something pretty serious for me to go to the lengths

of picking up a baseball bat.

But on this day, something serious does happen.

It's all captured on David's security cameras.

It's Thursday afternoon.

David's daughter-in-law has popped out for stamps,

so he's alone in the shop

when a masked figure rushes in.

When I saw him, suddenly, he marched straight in the shop, real

quickly, and straight up to the counter.

I knew immediately that there was something going to go down.

And he was a bit scary-looking.

He had a full latex mask on, which made him

look a bit like a cyborg, dark glasses, scarf, big coat, gloves.

The man demands to have his bag filled with expensive items.

He threatens David, saying he has a gun in his pocket.

It's all well and good him saying, "I've got a gun."

At that moment in time, I didn't believe him.

David turns his back and walks away.

The robber follows.

Well, I think that he probably thought I was going to the safe.

But David's really heading for his baseball bat.

He's hoping to frighten the man off.

But he doesn't see that behind him the robber's drawing a gun.

When I first turned round and saw that he'd got

a gun in his hand, I didn't really have much time to think.

David instinctively reacts to defend himself.

I went for the hand with the gun, you know,

and try and knock it out of his hand.

He strikes the gun hand.

Then suddenly, the situation gets a lot worse.

But it fired.

The gun goes off, but David keeps going.

And I thought, "Well, I'm not hit."

The gunman dives down to pick up the used bullet casing.

David chases after him.

At the door, the robber turns back, defiantly.

David knows he's now in real danger, so he goes for the gun again.

I then proceeded to give him

another really hard whack with the bat across the wrist

and I hit it so hard at the time that the magazine flew

out of the gun on the floor.

The gun went off again,

and then he ran across the road with the gun in his hand.

The gunman disappears down a side road.

At this point, David's daughter-in-law

returns to the store.

She heard two shots

and saw the guy run out of the shop with a gun in his hand,

so she immediately thought that she was going to find me on the floor

in here when she returned.

So, she was probably more scared than myself.

Security staff at a nearby shop also hear the shots and call the police.

We had everybody here, you know, I mean, there was armed police,

there was dog handlers, helicopters.

Despite a major search, the gunman has vanished.

The robber's left some DNA evidence,

but it's no help.

This was somebody who hadn't come to police attention before.

But a supermarket CCTV video from a few days before the crime

poses a question.

What does this dangerous armed robber look like behind the mask?

Surely, not someone who looks like this, like the boy next door?

This young man, who had never been in trouble with

the police before, from a very well-respected family,

was now a prime suspect.

Most of the criminals we come across

aren't exactly the sort of super villains

that you find in the movies.

In fact, as far as criminal masterminds are concerned,

these next two fall a little bit short.

Short-sighted, that is.

An optician's is about to be burgled by a pair of thieves who are

so focused on stealing designer sunglasses,

they are blind to the fact they're on camera.

The store is closed,

but these two break in, intent on some out-of-hours shopping.

The gentlemanly thief holds the door for his partner in crime.

There's obviously nothing wrong with their eyesight.

They quickly spot the most expensive sunglasses

and start ripping them off the shelves.

With no more room in her bag,

the woman starts shoving shades

up her dress, and

makes a spectacle of herself.

They eventually get away, albeit walking strangely with 26

pairs, that's nearly £4,000 worth,

and they're still at large.

But police have released this footage, hoping the glare

of publicity will prove too bright for this pair of shady characters.

And they'll soon be well and truly in the frame.

A man removes a car window, but he's not there to repair it.

He's stealing a bag off the back-seat.

But before he gets carried away with his crime,

strapping security guards zip over to bag the blagger.

And another crime, another bag.

Police unmask the armed robber at the jeweller's with

the help of a reusable Bag for Life and a few slices of ham.

We love our canine companions,

so when a family pet gets taken for a walk by a stranger,

the hunt is on to find a lead.

Bradford, and a back yard that's home to Charlie,

the miniature schnauzer and his loving owners.

Charlie is a family member. He's more like a child than he is a dog.

One evening, Charlie's sitting out the back like a watchdog,

but unfortunately, on this particular night,

it's Charlie himself who's being watched.

A man walks up to the wall.

He leans over, and in one rough,

single movement he grabs Charlie,

taking away the friendly little dog

and leaving behind a family that's shocked and distraught.

SHE SIGHS

I just cannot even think about not having Charlie at all.

I felt sick, upset, angry.

In desperation, the family turned to a nationwide army of dog owners

who are joining forces to fight the rising problem of dog thieves.

We are all like a close-knit community of doggy detectives.

Charlie's out there somewhere.

Andy and Annette had raised their family here in Bradford

and moved to this house 15 years ago.

It's a nice place to live, it's just

a normal multicultural place, and it's a family area.

It's just a down-to-earth place to live.

Now, they look after six-year-old Kyla, their eldest son's

daughter, as well as Ryan, their younger son, who's 18.

And then, there's Charlie, their nine-year-old miniature schnauzer.

Charlie's just a family member.

He's more like a child than he is a dog.

He just mixes with us, he has Christmas presents with us.

He's just so brilliant.

Throughout the day, he spends a lot of time with

my granddaughter who's autistic.

As Kyla grew up, she became best friends with Charlie

because, with her autism, she's not good at getting friendships

and socialising with people.

She's non-verbal as well, she can't speak, so they do stuff

together without having to talk.

She'll point to him to do stuff and he'll do it,

absolutely brilliant together.

Charlie's also friendly with the neighbours.

He's a house dog, he's not a dog that's left in the garden,

but when you do let him out he'll do what he has to do

and then he'll stand at the gate and he'll watch for people

and a lot of people in the area know him. They all pat him on the head

and give him a bit of a stroke.

Charlie's so important to them they've had him microchipped, so if

he was ever lost and found, he could be scanned to find out his address.

The garden gate is padlocked

and although they've never had any trouble here,

Andy recently decided to have a CCTV system installed.

There wasn't a reason for doing it, it was just the fact that we've been

here 15 years, we decided to upgrade our

alarm system on the house and after having done that, we put CCTV in.

And it's going to prove important that they did.

It's a Wednesday evening, 9pm and Kyla's in bed.

Myself and Andy were watching television, Ryan had gone out and

he came back, let Charlie out.

While Charlie's in the garden, Ryan puts a pizza in the oven

and pops upstairs.

So he came down, opened the door to shout Charlie back in

and he didn't come back in.

And then he said, "Where's Charlie?" and I said, "Well, he's outside."

-And he said, "No, he's not."

-So, we all went outside to look...

But there's no sign of Charlie anywhere.

That's when we decided that, rather than go wandering

looking for him, let's go have a look at CCTV

and look at how he got out and what direction he went in.

And what they see shocks them all.

Charlie's sat at the gate, watching the road.

Their other camera shows a white van passing.

A short while later a man walks across the road

and stands by the corner for a few moments.

Then he walks along the hedge to near where Charlie's

sitting in the back garden.

He calls the friendly dog over, then checks up and down the street.

Reaching over the wall to pet Charlie,

the man signals to the white van with his right hand.

Now, he calls Charlie over to him again,

then suddenly, grabs him by the collar

and hauls Charlie over the wall and runs to the van.

The family can't believe what they've seen on the CCTV.

SHE SIGHS

I absolutely felt sick, upset, angry.

When my son said, "That's it. It's my fault. They've stolen him.

"They're going to use him as a bait dog.

"No, he's going to get ripped to bits."

And it were just a matter of sheer horror for my son.

They wouldn't want him as a pet, if they were just

going to drag him the way they did.

The worst things are in your mind of

what could somebody be doing with him?

They have no idea why Charlie was taken.

Andy phones the police,

while one of Annette's friends suggests

something else they could do.

She actually said to me, "Put it on social media, you know,

"get the word out."

Within ten minutes, we had footage on the media site

and asked for any help, try and get him back.

A short while later, messages of support start to trickle in.

They soon become a torrent.

It just sort of kicked off.

Within a couple of hours, it had gone phenomenal.

-We had it everywhere.

-It's gone viral.

No-one knows what's happened to Charlie,

but the couple have discovered a massive network of pet detectives.

People like Diane.

She's a dog owner in Bradford who has successfully helped to

-reunite lost pets with their owners.

-Give me your paw.

There's thousands of people all over England that do what I do.

I started on my laptop,

noticing that there were a lot of dogs being stolen and scanned

through what dogs had been found and trying to match them up.

It's hard sometimes, but when you get a result, it's brilliant.

As well as matching missing dogs to their owners,

the detectives also put pressure on the dog thieves.

They flood an area with pictures of a stolen dog to get

hundreds of local dog lovers on the lookout.

You've just got to make it too hot to handle.

They just can't sell that dog on immediately, like they would do.

You know, you usually find that they do dump the dogs then because

there's nothing they can do with the dog then.

Diane's hopeful the dog detectives can help in Charlie's case.

I think the CCTV footage made him stand out, really.

It just spread like wildfire around the UK.

Two days go by.

Charlie's story has also been in the local press,

but there's still no news.

It's a tough time for the family.

My son wasn't eating, he wasn't sleeping, he were just sat worrying.

And obviously, it had a big effect on Kyla because

this were her friend, basically.

On the third day, they decide to take Kyla to a theme park to

help take her mind off Charlie.

At the same time as they're driving,

another driver called Daniel is also making his way through Bradford.

Daniel's not a pet detective himself,

but he happens to be Diane's son and shares his mum's interest

and always keeps an eye out for stray dogs.

Me and my girlfriend were going to buy some new clothes and as I was

driving up the road and I'd seen this little grey dog

just running up the main road.

So, I rung my mum to see, you know,

to ask her what I should do.

I said, "Well, what kind of dog is it?" And he said, "It's a grey

"terrier-type looking dog."

Instantly, I thought of Charlie, so I sent him the picture and

immediately he said, "Mum, it's definitely him."

With the help of passers-by,

Daniel manages to catch the bedraggled little dog.

He had slight red bits on his paw like he'd been bleeding.

He were all wet and scruffy in his beard and down his paws.

He started calming down when I got him home and got him

-some food and some water.

-We knew instantly it was Charlie.

As soon as I called his name, he looked straight at me. So then,

we took him straight up to the local kennels to check for a microchip.

While the dog is scanned, Andy

and Annette have arrived at the theme park.

They get a message telling them that Charlie might have been found.

We were both looking at each other saying, "Don't get your hopes up,

-"it might not be him."

-Then there's a phone call from staff at the

kennels who retrieve Andy's number from the microchip.

And then Andy got off the phone and said, "Yes, it's Charlie.

-"It's Charlie."

-We were, like, trying to fight back the tears.

"Great, brilliant, brilliant!" (Thank God for that.)

Diane takes Charlie back to his home

where the family's son, Ryan, is waiting.

Charlie just cried when he got there and Ryan opened the door.

He just were crying to get into the house.

Seeing what Ryan looked like she said, "I just wanted to

"give him a hug and a kiss." She said, "But I didn't want to, because

"he's 18 and I didn't think he'd like, you know, the giving

-"him a hug, sort of thing."

-That was a really emotional reunion as well.

When we got home, then he just went crazy.

Kyla were...she were just kissing him

and cuddling him and stroking him.

Now Charlie is safely back home and because no-one can identify

the thieves, the police decide to close the case.

But the family thank everyone for their help.

They have no doubt that it was the power of the online pet detectives

that led to Charlie's release.

I think there was that much media about the dog, I think

they just thought, "It's going to

"be a matter of time before we get caught."

People would have been looking. "Is that that dog?" I really think

because of media, yeah, he was then returned because of that.

Daniel's become a bit of a local hero.

And I'm so proud of Daniel for helping.

There's been women wanting to kiss my son,

there's been hundreds of messages saying how wonderful he is.

Inspired by the help they received,

Andy and Annette are now supporting the pet detectives

themselves with their own internet page called Charlie's Angels.

Because we've had so much help from people, we thought

we needed to pay people back, because we knew how devastated

we felt when Charlie went missing, but we also know how elated we were

when we got him back. So, it were, like, if we can do

that for at least one other person, at least we've given something back.

Andy and Annette faced a pet owner's nightmare when Charlie went missing.

So, what steps can we take to help keep our pets safe?

Microchipping is a really

effective way of being able

to identify an owner of a dog.

But it's really important that you

keep your details up-to-date.

So, if you do move house or change

your telephone number, make sure

you constantly update those details.

You'd be surprised,

it's not just the high-value

pedigree dogs that may be taken.

Often, some dogs are taken

because of the nature of them,

so if they are fighting dogs,

people may take them for that reason.

If you've got to let the dog out at the end of the evening,

before you go to bed, then a few things you can do.

First of all, put a bell on the gate so that you can hear

if anybody has actually accessed your garden, listen out for passing

motor vehicles and thirdly, if you can, go out with them.

Often thieves will simply look at your pet as a commodity.

Your dog, to them, could be worth £300, £400.

For you it's priceless, so make sure you look after your pet

and protect it as best you can.

Now, a thief who tries a bit of backpacking but ends up

being sent packing.

In broad daylight, a man tries to prise open a car window.

It could be he's left his keys inside.

But no, he has a quick look around, checks nobody is watching, and

pops out the whole windowpane and steals a bag off the back-seat.

Putting it on, he then struts off,

with an air of confidence that says, "Hey, I'm just an ordinary guy,

"not someone who's just stolen a backpack."

But his attempt to hide in plain sight fails.

On CCTV, an eagle-eyed security guard has seen him remove

the rucksack and sends a colleague to run out and tackle the thief.

The man drops the bag and tries to get away.

He's definitely not strutting now.

Two members of the public also join in the attempt to bag

this thief, though sensibly they decide it's best not to get

too physical and follow him, taking pictures on their phone.

The owner of the backpack was grateful it was rescued

as it contained a valuable laptop.

As for the thief,

he bagged himself a ride in the back-seat of a police car.

In Barnstaple, Devon, jeweller David has used a baseball bat to

fight off a masked robber who's threatening him with a gun.

The gun's fired twice, but David isn't hurt and the robber's fled.

It was a chance I took and, you know, fortunately for me,

it turned out to be OK.

And afterwards, you can't sleep very well because you keep

thinking about things, what might have happened, what did happen, etc.

Yeah, it plays on your mind, without a doubt.

The gunman's left empty-handed,

but he's left behind some potential clues.

In the scuffle by the door, David managed to damage the gun

and its magazine clip flew off.

When I struck him on the wrist at that time, it's difficult

to see, the magazine ended up on the floor just by this cabinet.

Detective Inspector Praveen Naidoo is in charge of the investigation.

It's the kind of call

that you hear over the radio, which

you never really want to hear. Two shots fired

in Barnstaple high street.

David's daughter-in-law, who'd heard shots, as far as she was aware,

her father-in-law could have been shot dead.

His team finds that the gun's magazine is actually loaded

with blanks. It might be an imitation weapon.

But as well as the gun clip,

the robber has also left his bag on the counter.

My granddaughter, who also works here, recognised the bag,

that it was one that was being sold by one of the major

supermarket-type stores close by.

It's a reusable Bag for Life.

The bag and the gun clip are sent for forensic analysis.

The results show both have traces of the same DNA.

But unfortunately,

it doesn't match any past offenders on the police database.

The mystery deepens.

What that told us,

this was somebody who hadn't come to police attention before.

It looked like this might be the man's first offence.

Praveen's team will have to find another way to identify him,

and the bag gives them another lead.

This bag, which in itself, is quite distinctive,

we could identify the shop that it came from and

we had a local branch of that shop.

This particular type of bag has only been on sale for three months

and when a sharp-eyed manager at the shop checks the till receipts

for all the bags they've sold, she spots something strange.

It was a bag which one would reasonably expect to have

been sold with the larger quantities of goods, except for this

one transaction the day before the robbery, for a Bag for Life

and £2.50's worth of gammon ham.

Because it seems odd to buy such a large bag for one small item,

she reviews the CCTV images

to find out who bought the bag.

It's this young man.

What we then did was to set about identifying who this person was.

Praveen appeals to the public for help,

and the man's face appears in the local newspapers.

And a few days later,

an 18-year-old man comes forward saying he'd bought the bag.

When he came into the police station,

he presented as a young man from a very well-to-do family,

never been in trouble with the police before.

The man denies attempting to rob David and claims he bought the ham

and then bought the bag on a whim.

That seemed odd, but being odd doesn't necessarily

make him our offender.

To rule him out of the investigation,

the police take his DNA.

It is something which we'd policied right from the outset that

anybody coming into our inquiry, we would take their DNA to obtain

that comparison because most people lie to us.

A few days later, Praveen's team get a surprise from the lab.

The officer who took that phone call couldn't believe it. You know, he

was just completely taken aback by it.

The 18-year-old's DNA matches the samples found on both the

gun clip and the bag left at David's jewellery shop.

This young man, who had never been in trouble with

the police before, was now a prime suspect.

The police arrest him.

The suspect gave a full and frank admission.

He admitted to the officers that it was him that had done it

and at that point, clearly, we knew we had got the right person.

Back at the jewellery store,

David and his staff are glad the culprit's been caught.

Obviously, we were very, very happy, you know, because we all

wanted to know who he was,

we all wanted to see what was under that mask.

In court, the 18-year-old is sentenced to three years, eight

months for attempted robbery

and two years for the possession of an imitation weapon.

David's bravery helped lead to the man's conviction.

But he took a big risk.

Fighting back under these circumstances is something that

I'd never actively encourage, but if it weren't for the action

of Mr Bruce, we wouldn't have retrieved the items that we did, we

wouldn't have got the forensic evidence, and we might not be

in this position today. We've got a successful prosecution.

What took place, took place

and I'm sure now that he's going to much regret it.

He'll have plenty of time now to reflect on his misdemeanours.

David's improving security at his shop and despite his recent

experience, he isn't giving up the business just yet.

David continues to bid for antique jewellery.

My wife would like me to retire but, as I always say,

you're never too old to put your hand up at an auction.

That's it for today.

Join us next time when police

and the public catch more criminals red-handed.