Episode 14 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.

The CCTV is gold dust.

-Great evidence for the police.

-Got to have him 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's up to no good had better think twice -

they might just get caught red-handed.

Today...

A gang of burglars raid over

50 businesses and brazenly taunt

their victims with a comic dance.

To me, that's just an absolute insult.

"Look - here we are, catch me if you can."

But the police discover where the raiders have stashed a stolen safe

and set a trap.

We took the opportunity to remove the safe from the woods and

replace it with a camera.

They are dying to find out what is inside that safe.

Also today, when a thief steals from a launderette...

It's... The split second, his face was embedded in my mind.

The owner is determined to take him to the cleaners.

My first instinct was, "Run, go get this guy."

And the man in this tipper truck was paid to get rid of an entire tree

properly, but he's decided to replant it,

illegally, in the middle of the city.

Rural Devon, and small businesses are under attack.

An organised criminal gang are breaking in and breaking up their

victims' premises, stealing stock, money and valuables.

They were committing offences all over the county,

causing devastating impact on the owners of businesses.

My whole world was just turned upside down.

It was just heartbreaking.

The burglars leave little evidence behind.

They think they're untouchable.

So we're even more determined to touch them,

but it was a game of cat and mouse, really.

Four police investigators team up to set a trap.

Enough was enough. We needed to bring these offenders to justice.

Devon is a county with a high proportion

of small towns and villages.

And alongside its major industries of agriculture and tourism,

the county has a thriving set of small industries

and a network of small local traders.

Tony started up his own car repair workshop after his fascination with

mechanics started as a child.

I remember my mother took me down to a shop and I bought my first ever

socket set and it cost £20, I think.

And I spent a lot of time doing the hoovering and the dishes to save up

all my money to do it. I just love taking things apart

and seeing how it works and being able to fix things.

At the age of 19, he took the plunge and opened up his own business.

It was very hard at first.

Lots of late nights and...

no money.

I just had a tool box,

a pair of axle stands and a trolley jack,

and then obviously every time you earn money from a job you put it

back into the business. And that's how I just grew and grew and grew.

Ten years on and Tony's expanded the business.

He runs it from a small industrial estate

on the outskirts of South Molton.

I've employed several people now.

Obviously, as we grow, I hope to employ more people.

Tony is proud of what he's achieved.

It's what I've made it, even down to the paint on the floor.

It means the world to me, really, my business.

But then, one Monday night in August,

Tony becomes the victim of crime.

A gang of burglars spent hours raiding four separate businesses

on the industrial estate.

They force open a fire door at Tony's workshop

and steal his safes and other valuables.

Tony arrives in the morning to a scene of devastation.

All the computers and all the laptops,

all the equipment was all smashed over the floor.

I went upstairs and they'd gone through my personal belongings.

A lot of it, it means a lot to me.

The first ever MOT which I done,

I'd kept that. And I don't know where that is now.

It was just heartbreaking.

Tony has CCTV and watches back the recording.

On top of the theft and the damage that they caused,

one of the burglars shows contempt for his victims.

This guy here does a robot dance in front of the camera.

Now, to me, that's just an absolute insult.

"Look - here we are, catch me if you can."

The cost of the damage done

is even more than the value of the stolen goods.

The value lost to the business was into the tens of thousands.

I don't think that they realise

the impact it has on someone's livelihood

and future.

The raid on Tony's car workshop

is just one of a large number of similar burglaries

being reported to the police.

Detective Inspector James Tarr at Honiton police station investigates.

There was a massive spike in burglaries at commercial premises.

So I remember thinking, "Goodness, we have a real spree here,

"a real problem." We weren't sure who was doing it.

Often, individual officers would be investigating

on their own in isolation. So it was my responsibility really

to kind of identify that problem

and pull together a team to gather

the evidence to try and catch the person who was doing it.

James puts a team of four officers together.

They scrutinise every piece of evidence

and realise they're dealing with an organised gang that targets

out-of-town businesses.

They leave behind few clues,

and they're not worried about being caught on CCTV cameras.

PC Simon Aldred examines the footage.

They are very forensically aware.

So...

they will use balaclavas

and brand-new items of clothing

and almost always wear gloves.

The gang also avoids setting off alarms

by breaking down doors that don't have sensors,

or even breaking through walls.

The gang are increasingly confident.

Due to the rural location of the premises,

they had all night to commit the offence,

so they were taking a sledgehammer

to breeze blocks and it caused an

immense amount of damage to get that safe out of that building,

to empty it in the rural location to try and find what was in that safe.

Then James's team get a breakthrough.

The burglars used Tony's own tools to smash up his equipment

and one of them has left a clue behind.

When they sledgehammered the safe out of the ground,

they left some DNA on the handle of the hammer.

Skin cells found on the hammer

are checked against the police DNA database. There's a match.

They belong to 22-year-old Nicky Christian.

Police intelligence shows he associates with two brothers

a couple of decades older -

Reginald and Percy Soper.

In the area where we work in rural East Devon,

those names have been talked about for quite some time,

and we were determined to try

and make sure that if they were responsible,

that we convicted them once and for all

for the crimes that they've committed.

James suspects the three men are behind

a spate of business burglaries. But that's not all.

The team widen their investigation to include five earlier jewellery

shop raids. This CCTV footage

was handed to the police by a shop owner who

spotted two men behaving suspiciously.

They are Nicky Christian and Reginald Soper.

This shows two members of the gang recceing this shop.

And you see the suspect here

is standing right next to the alarm panel and you see

he leans forward there and I think what has actually happened is

that they have decided that the security in this shop

is pretty good, so they didn't actually break into it.

But two days later, a nearby jeweller's WAS burgled.

After that, the jewellery shop raids end,

but the business attacks pick up.

They were very savvy, they knew what to do, how to get away with it.

They absolutely thought they were untouchable.

Later... The team of investigators

start to build a case against the gang of burglars.

We needed to paint a watertight enough picture so they

wouldn't be able to wriggle out of it.

And the police launch a special operation to trick the crooks.

Footage showed another member of the gang trying to recover what he

thought was a safe, but was actually a dummy safe with a camera.

Salford council knew they had a problem with people dumping waste

illegally, but they weren't expecting this guy,

who takes landscape gardening to the extreme.

A secret camera records this driver

adding to Salford's rubbish-tipping problem by the truckload.

After dumping what pretty much looks like an entire tree...

..the driver gets out to inspect his handiwork.

Yep. You wouldn't want to leave any in the van, would you?

He then drives off.

But a nice clear shot of his tipper truck's numberplate tips off the

council, and they are able to root him out.

Apparently, he's been paid £20 to clear somebody's garden and has for

some reason driven 30 miles to dump it here, illegally.

Taken to court, he's ordered to stump up nearly £600

in fines and costs.

So all in all, that's a pretty rubbish result for him.

Hopefully, he has twigged not to do this sort of thing again.

Coming up...

A slippery customer in a pub

does something most of us would find unthinkable.

So the regulars brew up a campaign to call time on this crook.

Now, you could call him a money-launderer -

a thief who steals cash from a launderette,

but then finds himself in hot water.

Enniskillen in Northern Ireland,

and it's such a busy day at Veronica's launderette

and dry cleaner's, the shop's till is left unattended for a moment,

and outside, a thief has noticed.

He just decided to come in and chance his arm.

He found out he was dealing with the wrong person.

Veronica gives chase.

She definitely wanted to get justice.

Panicked, the thief takes off into the town.

Veronica's outrun, but not outsmarted.

She's going to make sure that this thief gets his comeuppance.

Surrounded by water, Enniskillen is known as "the island town".

It's grown to be the largest town in County Fermanagh

and is a popular tourist spot.

Veronica came here for a holiday and ended up staying.

Enniskillen is lovely. I initially came for two weeks.

And that was 23 years ago.

And I've ended up staying and making Enniskillen my home.

For the past 3½ years,

Veronica has been running her own dry-cleaning business.

I've built it up day by day.

A job I thoroughly enjoy. Fantastic staff who work alongside me.

And it's more of a team effort than anything else.

The clock just flies in here every day.

It's a friendly place to work.

We endeavour to know the customers' names.

And every customer has a story to tell.

We've heard them all.

But one Thursday in August,

Veronica ends up with her own tale for the customers.

It's just gone noon on a hot summer's day.

The shop door is open to let in some air.

Veronica and her staff are in the back room.

For a few moments, there's no-one at the counter.

And I heard the till opening.

And I knew all my staff was in the back, so I thought that was strange.

So I just pushed the door open and noticed this guy standing there.

And I thought, "You shouldn't be there."

And then there was just this hand that was in the till.

The man grabs a handful of £20 notes, then he makes a run for it.

My first instinct was, "Run, go get this guy."

He turned left, so I followed him.

Back then, I was a little bit heavier than I currently am.

He was fitter. But I was pounding,

and I was just going for it with my eyes focused solely on him.

It seems the thief meets up with another man,

and the two of them race off,

passing the forecourt camera of a neighbouring hotel...

closely followed by Veronica.

In my head, I knew they would be caught on CCTV with the hotel.

The two men run across the hotel car park and disappear.

Veronica dashes into the hotel reception

to tell staff what's happened and asks them to call 999.

They were startled because, of course,

they weren't used to any of this happening either.

Veronica heads back to the staff at her launderette who have been left

wondering why she suddenly ran out.

I told the girls exactly what had happened and there was a few tears

amongst them as well. Then, as they say, the show must go on.

We had customers coming in.

They discover the man has stolen around £100.

The police combed the area, searching for the thief.

Detective Constable Tara Malone investigates the case.

The offender is still out there.

He still has the stolen property on him.

He's more than likely still wearing the clothes that he was seen in at

the time, so it's important police catch these people quickly.

Veronica's able to give the police a detailed description of the thief.

When something like this happens to you,

and you've seen their face and you've seen those eyes,

you'll still remember the face.

Hoping to recognise the man quickly,

officers immediately check the hotel CCTV.

Because the police officers are local, they were able

to identify more or less straight away who the offender was.

He's a local 21-year-old who's been in trouble before.

Officers scour the street, hunting for the man in the blue shirt.

And they decided to search the town, and as they were driving down,

they saw a known associate of this offender

go into the Social Security offices.

The police go inside the building and are surprised to see

the suspect himself coming out of the gents' toilet,

though he's wearing different clothes.

On CCTV, when the police viewed it,

you can see he is wearing a blue top and he's also carrying what looks

like a jacket. When police apprehended the suspect,

he was wearing a jacket.

Police went into the toilets and found a blue top in the bin.

The thief's attempt to hide his distinctive clothing has failed.

But there's no sign of the cash he's stolen,

and back at the station, he denies everything.

Tara knows Veronica's a good eyewitness,

so she decides to set up an identification parade.

And I was able to identify him straightaway,

without a shadow of a doubt.

It's... The split second, his face was embedded in my mind.

But the man continues to claim he's innocent, so the case goes to court.

It's Veronica's word against his.

But they also have the key evidence of the CCTV.

Veronica, ultimately, she gave evidence in open court, which is...

It can be very distressing.

But she was a very robust and

she definitely wanted to get justice.

At the end of the day, nobody has the right to come in,

to take my money

that I've worked hard to earn.

The man is found guilty.

He is sentenced to four months in prison for the theft.

Tara is pleased by the outcome.

It's a good result for the police,

but it was more for the satisfaction of Veronica,

particularly after how she'd conducted herself through the whole investigation.

Veronica's customers are impressed by her fight against crime.

The customers have been coming in to congratulate me and telling me,

you know, what a great job I did.

And the support has been fantastic.

My business is still growing from day to day in here.

If somebody else wants to come through the doors

and do the same thing to me, I'll be waiting for them.

It's rarely a good idea to chase a thief.

But Veronica was also able to be a very helpful witness.

What should WE do if we ever witness a crime in progress?

The police service can't survive without the support of the public,

so if you witness something, please ring us.

We just need people to tell us what they've seen and we'll do the rest.

But we really do need your help.

People think that clothing isn't important when offering

a description of an offender. But it's essential.

The reason for that is,

even though they might have changed their clothing by the time we arrest

them, we will conduct house searches.

And we will find that.

And forensically, we can link them back to the crime.

Even something that appears to be insignificant at the time

can in fact be vital later on in the investigation.

I've recently had a case where a man's bald patch

proved to be the key feature in identifying him as the offender.

There's no detail too small for the police in conducting

a crime investigation.

If you see something, say something.

You could provide us with that one piece of information that could help

solve the entire crime.

Just how low could a thief go?

Well, stealing money that's being saved for disabled children

is about as low as it gets.

Norwich.

This children's charity relies on donations from the public.

Any money that people donate via a charity box is essential.

But this thief doesn't care about that

when he callously takes one of the charity tins from a local pub.

But the pub's angry regulars take a very uncharitable view of what he's

done. Pub power mobilises an army of helpers in a campaign to catch him.

It was upwards of 20, maybe 30,000 people

had been reached by the video.

The hunt is on to name and shame the man

who'd stoop to steal from charity.

The Hamlet Centre in Norwich helps children and young adults

with disabilities.

The charity was set up in 1972 by an inspirational disabled couple,

Jack and Margaret Wymer,

who believed by improving support offered to people with disabilities,

they could become more independent

and have a better quality of life.

I think it's a massive support to the families who use us.

The feedback we get from families is wonderful.

It makes such a positive difference to their lives.

Rachel is a fundraiser,

and is keenly aware the charity relies on the kindness of strangers.

We have some brilliant supporters

who go above and beyond and do lots of

amazing things for the charity,

like jumping out of planes or holding tea parties.

The charity also has collection tins throughout the area.

And one of their tins sits proudly on the bar of a pub

called the Lollard's Pit.

And the cheerful atmosphere in the pub

means the charity box is regularly filled.

Liam is assistant manager.

All the charities that the pub has chosen to support

are all local charities. The Hamlet Trust helps children,

so any little bit of change

the customers give towards the charity box.

But one evening, Liam finds out not everybody is so kind-hearted.

It's late on at the end of a busy Saturday night.

Captured on the pub's CCTV system,

some of the last customers are drinking up.

We were all cleaning up,

getting ready to go and these two men had been

in the pub for a good few hours.

The charity collection tin for The Hamlet Centre

is sitting near them on the bar.

Minutes later, the man in the grey top sidles closer to it.

He starts untying the security string

that fixes the tin to the counter.

Then he pushes it over to the other man and walks away.

The man in the pink shirt doesn't seem to want to look at the tin.

But over at the doorway,

the man in the grey shirt can't keep his eyes off it.

A couple of minutes later, he sneaks back and takes the tin.

Liam's shocked when he finds out.

I was quite disgusted, really,

that someone would think to steal a charity box,

especially from a children-based charity.

Everybody involved with the charity

was really sad to hear about the theft.

On average, a full collection box might get us about £50.

The pub reports the crime to the police.

They also show their regulars the CCTV footage of the theft.

Nobody knew who they were, of the customers.

And they were quite shocked, really,

that they'd come into their pub and stolen a charity box.

It's almost like stealing from the customers as well as the charity.

The pub decides to launch a campaign

and posts the video of the crime

on social media to try to identify the man.

They're surprised at the size of the response.

Lots of people trying to help out,

also sharing the post to make sure as many people could see it as possible.

Word quickly spreads across Norwich.

It was 20, maybe 30,000 people had been reached by the video.

The response from the public was great.

It featured in the local paper, it was on the front page,

which was unbelievable.

They begin to get suggestions as to the identity of the thief.

One name kept coming up, which we forwarded to the police.

And in less than two weeks, the thief is tracked down.

A 28-year-old man's convicted for the theft.

He's sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for a year,

and has to pay costs.

The size of the public response to the crime gives the pub an idea.

We thought with that much attention,

we would be able to do something good for the charity,

so we set up an online giving page.

And as a result, donations have flooded in for The Hamlet Centre.

And the nice comments that the charity received

as a result was fantastic.

So we were really, really delighted

with the way that the Lollard's Pit turned a negative into a positive.

Back to rural Devon,

where an organised gang has been raiding out-of-town business parks.

Tony's car workshop was smashed up

and hundreds of pounds' worth of valuables stolen.

My whole world was just turned upside down.

It was just heartbreaking.

Detective Inspector James Tarr has put together a team

to stop the burglars.

The prime suspects are known associates, Reginald Soper,

Percy Soper and Nicky Christian.

DNA evidence links Christian

and some CCTV footage links in Reginald Soper.

But there's no evidence yet his brother Percy is involved.

They planned meticulously each break.

They'd got away with it so many times, they felt they were invincible.

The suspects have been stopped and searched several times,

but nothing's been found linking them to the crimes.

The gang members were arrested on a number of occasions,

and each time made "no comment" to any question we asked.

And there's never enough evidence to hold them.

And literally the following day, we get a report of more burglaries.

So it was a bit of a game of cat and mouse, really.

James decided the best way to approach the case

is to build a picture of all the crimes together

and charge them with the serious offence of conspiracy.

We chose to investigate this as a conspiracy case,

based on the fact that had they been charged individually for

the burglaries, we wouldn't have succeeded.

So by piecing together small pieces of evidence, be it CCTV,

be it footwear impressions,

be it DNA, we could build an overall picture,

which demonstrated that that gang committed all those offences.

The team piece together the small clues and circumstantial evidence,

which have more meaning when combined together.

And they notice some startling similarities between the crimes.

This CCTV showed the quite distinctive shape

of some of the members of the gang.

And a person of that build is seen on almost every occasion.

The crimes appear to be committed in identical ways.

The gang seems to be becoming increasingly confident.

Often they intended on stealing a vehicle from one premise

to then take a safe from the adjoining premise

at that same location.

From one of the businesses that they stole a vehicle,

one of the members of the gang

actually left a message on the board.

And it was this message.

And it reads, "Thanks for that car."

With a little smiley face.

It just shows how brazen these people are.

For the victim, it adds insult to injury.

But that sketch later proves to be important evidence,

as another very much like it

is found on a piece of paper in Nicky Christian's home.

And there's another breakthrough.

A dog walker spots an unopened safe

in remote woodland and reports it

to the police. It's a stolen safe

that's been stashed by the gang in the undergrowth.

It's likely the gang will return to try to open the safe.

So now James and his team can set a trap.

So we orchestrated a little sting operation.

We took the opportunity to actually remove the safe from the woods and

replace it with a camera and a dummy safe.

They are dying to find out what's inside that safe.

So we knew that they were likely to come back.

And they do. The next day, the camera catches a face

looming out of the trees. But he notices there's something different.

You can see he's a little bit mystified.

Footage showed another member of the gang.

It's the third man, Percy Soper.

It's a key moment.

And we were able to trace him from mobile phone and telephone records

making contact with other members of that team

because he'd been abandoned.

The detectives map out the movements of the gang from the

seized mobile phone data and from number plate recognition cameras.

They pull together all the information

to paint a picture of the crimes.

Then finally, they have what they need.

I remember it vividly, actually. One Friday evening, myself and my

colleague thought to ourselves, "Enough is enough.

"We have enough evidence here to charge them with conspiracy."

The Crown Prosecution Service agrees.

Christian and the Soper brothers are arrested.

It was a particularly satisfying day for us and all the victims that we

notified of their charge for the offences.

An astonishing 54 burglaries were committed

in less than six months.

With the gang in prison awaiting trial, the burglaries stop.

A fact not overlooked by the police.

The jury finds the three gang members guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary.

Reginald Soper is sentenced to 8½ years in prison.

Percy Soper and Nicky Christian

are both sentenced to 6½ years.

After all their hard work,

the investigators are pleased with the result.

We couldn't quite believe it.

We have been able to paint a picture from pieces of evidence, where taken

on their own, they don't amount to anything very much.

It was a very satisfying moment, and it's one that I won't ever forget.

Really pleasing, for myself and all the team,

but obviously the victims are the most important thing for us -

to be able to send them a letter

and tell them that we've caught their burglars was really,

really satisfying for us all.

Tony's improved his security,

adding door and window bars and a new alarm system.

He's looking forward to a bright future.

It had a massive impact at the time, but now I've pulled through it,

especially with the help of local people, and friends and family.

It's made me a stronger person, it's made me more determined to succeed.

That's it for today.

Join us next time, when police and the public

catch more criminals red-handed.