Episode 3 Caught Red Handed

Thieves will steal our cash, our cars, our valuables,

just about anything they can get their hands on -

but now the police are using cutting-edge technology

to catch the bad guys.

We want to make sure we've got a concrete case.

Enough evidence to convict at court.

Local councils, shops and businesses

are fighting crime with their own tricks and traps...

It's just unbelievable that she thinks she can get away with this.

..and the public are using secret cameras...

..to make sure the crooks get their comeuppance.

Fair means or foul, I was going to get rid of him.

I thought, we've got her!

And I was so happy. Thank God!

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

They might just get caught red-handed.

Today, since Nigel started a hairdressing salon 42 years ago,

he's been broken into 32 times...

It's a horrible feeling.

Your heart sinks to the floor.

..but when burglars set off his alarm yet again,

this time, Nigel races to the shop,

determined to catch the thieves before they escape.

The blood's rushing because anything could happen.

I mean, you could get jumped on, couldn't you?

Also today, mother of two Trudy thinks her house is safe and secure,

but it isn't.

There's an intruder climbing into her bathroom,

and he's been spotted by an eagle-eyed neighbour.

This guy, he's gone through the window,

so now I'm panicking to get down there.

Trudy's about to get home with the burglar still upstairs...

..and comedy troupe Deb, Sue and Jacky, also known as the Fizzogs,

are one of the star attractions on their local radio station -

but then one night...

..a thief sneaks in and steals their equipment.

It was a complete shock when I got in

and where these mixing desks should have been,

there was just a table with two holes.

Unlike lightning, sometimes burglars do strike twice -

and there's one business that's been struck so many times by thieves,

it's become a regular event.

Hi, Emma, what a long time!

I'm going to do something magnificent with your hair today.

Nigel Womack runs a hairdressing salon in the middle of Blackburn.

Madam, your hair grows downwards, you know -

we could do with a bit of upwards.

He comes from a long line of hairdressers.

My grandma was the first lady's hairdresser

to own a salon in Blackburn. It's in the blood.

Going to look good in a storm, and you do!

In fact, you look like you've been in a storm.

-Where have you been today?

-Stop it!

But before deciding to follow in the family tradition,

when he was a teenager, Nigel wanted to be a detective.

I used to watch Starsky and Hutch in them days

and I wanted to throw myself over a red sports car

and catch the baddies -

and then I picked up a pair of scissors and it happened,

and that creativity with the scissors...

I was the master.

Nigel opened his first salon in 1974, just before his 21st birthday.

He moved to this prime location in Blackburn town centre

ten years later.

That's when everything really took off.

It was like a vortex!

Nearly 100 staff have worked for Nigel

in the 42 years he's been going.

I was just shocked by the way he is,

cos he lives life to the full, doesn't he?

He told me one time that he's learning how to not breathe

when he speaks

so that he can actually get more words into a sentence.

Nigel and his staff can cope with anything,

from split ends to frizzy fringes,

but there's one problem they can't get their heads around -

the salon keeps being burgled.

Probably 32 break-ins in 42 years, easily.

Burglars! I mean, in a hairdressing shop.

It's a horrible feeling.

And it's about to happen again.

When two more burglars raid his salon,

Nigel decides he will become a detective after all.

It's just after 1am and Nigel is woken by a hair-raising phone call

from the security company that monitors his salon overnight.

The phone ringing in the early hours of the morning,

I always think it's a break-in.

Your heart sinks to the floor.

The security company calls the police,

but Nigel decides to drive to the salon himself.

In the past, burglars have smashed their way in through the glass door

or one of the large shop windows.

I'm praying that it's my door window

and not the other two expensive windows. Please, be a door!

Nigel arrives before the police -

and it is the front door that's been smashed.

I can see it's shattering and the hole,

and it's big enough for somebody to get in.

I mean, they could still be there.

The blood's rushing because anything can happen.

I mean, you could get jumped on, couldn't you?

With little regard for his own safety,

Nigel turns detective and goes inside to investigate.

I'm looking around for the guy.

Maybe they're in the toilets.

Maybe they're hiding upstairs.

And you can see the brick that they've used - big, massive brick.

Nigel picks up the brick for protection

and continues to comb the salon for evidence.

Go in the toilets, they could be hiding in there.

Go in the back room.

Behind the counter!

Well, thank goodness, there was nobody there,

and then I'm inspecting what they've done.

He discovers the petty cash drawer from the till is missing.

Some bottles of expensive caviar shampoo have also been taken

and there's been over £1,000 worth of damage to the salon.

Apart from all the devastation, cleaning up,

and having your window boarded up and causing all that for a...

I mean, you'd have given them the shampoo, wouldn't you?

The police arrive and check the security camera recording.

The CCTV coverage is brilliant.

You could spot faces in the dark.

At 1:10am, two men arrive at the front of the salon.

They look like they've had more than a few drinks.

You see how they're moving, wobbly on their feet, staggering.

Pulling his pants up.

One of them dislodges a brick from a wall.

He goes to check the street to see if anyone is coming

while his accomplice gets ready to use the brick to break in.

This guy picking this brick up doesn't look capable, does he?

But he is capable of using it to strike Nigel's door with force,

again and again.

The other man then kicks the door with all his might.

How vicious is that?

When they're physically punching that window in,

they're kicking me in the stomach. I feel that sick.

I'm so pleased that I didn't find them there.

One man climbs through the hole

and start grabbing the bottles of expensive shampoo

while the other man keeps a lookout,

shouting directions from outside.

Then the lookout gets impatient.

Maybe he's a little more sober,

so he goes through the hole himself

and runs around the counter to the till.

He snatches the notes and the tray of loose change.

Both men then run away.

Watching the recording has been upsetting for Nigel,

but the police have some good news.

We know that guy, straightaway, we know that guy, straightaway -

and they take a copy of it and then go out and these guys,

they recognise them, and all they have to do is go and pick some up.

Nigel is delighted, and sets about clearing up his salon

so his customers aren't disappointed when they turn up

for their appointments the next day.

People need their hair doing.

Nobody's going to stop me.

They open for business as usual, but Nigel doesn't hear from the police

and starts to worry they might never catch the burglars.

The day after the break-in

it was horrible to see Nigel upset as he was.

This is his baby, so, I think,

for anyone to try and destroy what he's built,

it's going to hurt.

But two days later...

Hello, Nigel's?

..Nigel's colour and condition is restored

when he gets a call from the police.

"We've caught them."

Oh, yes!

You're suddenly dragged from the pits.

How did you catch them?

Did you catch them red-handed

washing their hair with my caviar shampoo?

"No," he says.

"They were easily identifiable

"because they were wearing the same clothes."

And I'm dancing around the shop,

telling everybody, "Yes, but they caught them!"

And it's really good. I love it.

It wasn't quite Starsky and Hutch, but thanks to his cameras,

Nigel has helped to catch not one but two bad guys.

You're actually feeling like, yeah,

I've made the streets a bit safer for somebody else, not just me,

like you've cleansed Blackburn.

In court, one man was sent to prison for four and a half months

for this offence,

and the other was given a four-week suspended sentence.

Nigel no longer leaves petty cash in the till overnight,

and he has set about reinforcing his salon's defences...

We're going to get some shutters, so I'll never get broken into again.

..and Nigel isn't going to let his brush with crime

trim his growing ambition

to become the oldest hairdresser in the known universe.

I might have done 42 years, but I want to do another 42, really.

Can you imagine cutting somebody's hair at 99 years old?

It might be a shaky fringe, but I'd like to do it.

Look at that. Perfect.

This well-dressed young man in a suit

looks like a businessman on his way into the office -

but, actually, he's got all suited and booted

to commit armed robbery.

Finishing off his outfit with a balaclava,

he storms into a post office,

brings out a gun covered in a plastic bag and demands money...

..but everyone thinks it's some kind of joke,

so he points the gun straight at the unimpressed postmaster,

who bravely sends him a special delivery...

..a swipe to the face.

This doesn't suit the would-be robber.

He runs straight out of the shop and escapes...

..but not for long. Before he put on his balaclava,

this not-so-smart criminal

allowed his face to be caught on the shop's CCTV.

Police track down the dapper man-about-town

and he gets a dressing down in the courts.

Convicted of attempted robbery

and possession of an imitation firearm,

for the next four years,

he'll be swapping his natty suit for a prison uniform.

This burglar has no idea there are so many eyes watching him.

He's caught on this camera...

..and this camera...

..and this camera,

and a neighbour spotted him, too - so, surely he can't escape.

Plymouth, Devon.

Paul and his wife Trudy live on a housing estate in the city's suburbs

with their daughters Libby and Charlie and Buddy the family dog.

One of the reasons they opted to buy a house in the area

was because they thought it was safe and crime-free.

It's a quiet neighbourhood.

Paul grew up just around the corner, so we knew it.

Nothing ever happens here.

We decided it was a lovely, calm place and quiet for the kids

to be brought up.

Another resident on the estate is former bricklayer Mike.

He lives behind Paul and Trudy's back garden with his wife Esme.

Mike helped build the estate.

This land came up just as I was working opposite,

so that was handy for me.

I came across and put my name down for this block.

Mike's seen a lot of houses change hands

since he first came here in the 1980s.

Most of the neighbours around here now are strangers.

Everyone kind of keeps themselves to themselves,

but look out for everybody at the same time.

Trudy's husband Paul works in the security trade,

so he's made sure the family home is well equipped with CCTV cameras.

I spent over 20 years of my life installing security systems.

I now have my own business,

and we decided to put some more state-of-the-art cameras in

and use it almost as kind of demo site.

Sometimes you think,

nothing ever happens here, so why do I need these cameras?

But one day, something does happen,

and Paul and Trudy's security cameras come to the fore.

It's a midweek morning in autumn.

Paul's gone to work and is over an hour away,

and the girls are both at school.

I went to take the dog for a walk,

as I would do normally every morning.

Trudy's neighbour Mike and his wife Esme are at home.

We were going out in the afternoon so I went up, had a quick shower.

In every way a normal morning.

Well, not exactly...

..because there's a burglar on the prowl.

Paul's cameras pick him up walking along the pavement.

He takes a close look at their house.

He appears to move on, but he comes back.

The man's noticed the drive leading to the back of the property,

but he hasn't spotted the security cameras.

The intruder reappears in the back garden

and looks into Paul and Trudy's kitchen window...

..and then the dining room doors.

Trudy is still out walking her dog, so no-one is home.

The man then notices a set of ladders propped up

by the side of the building...

..and looks up and spots a small upstairs window is slightly ajar...

..but he's been seen -

and not just by the electronic eyes of the cameras.

After finishing his shower,

Mike looks out of his bedroom window

and notices the suspicious-looking man with the ladder.

I shouted down to the missus, is the window cleaner due today?

Cos there's a guy going up a ladder down below.

She said, "The window cleaner doesn't use a ladder.

"He's got a pole with a brush."

Mike opens a window and shouts across to the man

as he starts climbing the ladder.

This guy turned his head around and looked at me,

I'm stood there with no clothes on, looking out the window.

It was just surreal.

The man can't have realised that Mike is looking at him,

because he carries on up the ladder, opens the window

and gets ready to squeeze himself through the small gap.

It didn't look big enough for anybody to get through -

but he went in through the window,

so now I'm panicking to get down there.

As Mike races to get his clothes on, Trudy has just got home.

She has no idea there's an intruder inside.

Walked back with the dog, come in, let him off his lead.

Meanwhile, good neighbour Mike has thrown on some clothes

and rushed round to Trudy's house.

He stops and looks up...

Something caught my eye, the top bedroom window, a guy looking at me.

..but Mike isn't put off.

With Esme watching, he goes to the front door.

Trudy is just the other side.

I hear a knock at the door and there's a gentleman stood there

who basically said, "Hello, my love,

"I've just seen someone climb in through your bathroom window."

And I think my words were, "Pardon? You what?"

She just looked at me, not believing - well, nobody would.

If a stranger came to your door and told you that someone had broken in

and they were upstairs, you'd think, "Who is this guy?"

I think I actually said, "What do I do?"

And he was like, "Well, I'd call the police if I were you."

So I said, "Hang on, let me just ring my husband."

It occurs to Trudy

that her husband might have organised for work to be done

on the guttering without telling her, so she gives him a ring.

When she asked that and obviously I knew the answer was no,

my heart did miss a few beats.

I then actually looked through my porch-way window, which is glass,

and saw ladders, so at that point I'm thinking, "Oh, my God,

"there is somebody in the house."

Then, when she hung up, I don't know what's going on now

but I can check the cameras to at least see what's going on.

Paul connects to the cameras at home via his phone

and receives live pictures while Trudy calls the police.

On the phone you get even more scared when they're telling you

things like, "If someone comes running past you,

"don't approach them -

"they could have a needle, they could have a weapon."

Officers arrive within minutes.

They rush in and search the house,

but they can't find the intruder anywhere.

I'm saying silly things like, "You have checked under the beds,

"haven't you? And you've checked in the cupboards?"

And they're like, "Yeah,

"we've checked everywhere that we would check."

Trudy phones Paul again.

As well as watching his cameras' live pictures,

he can look back on what they recorded.

I then started to watch the playback video footage

from when he first arrived to see if he'd left.

And this is what Paul sees.

Perhaps rattled by Trudy and Mike turning up,

the burglar decides to make a hasty exit through a bedroom window.

He then goes round the side,

over the wall and escapes through a neighbour's garden.

It was instant relief

because, A, I realised Trudy and the house were all safe,

and secondly, I knew he was only in the house for a matter of moments.

You still feel violated, really, that someone's been in your home,

but really relieved that he didn't take anything.

But the burglar has got away.

Searched the area, nothing.

But he was there on CCTV.

Paul realises he's able to show the intruder's face to the police.

I'd managed to take screenshots from my phone

and text it straight to Trudy.

Which I showed to the policeman stood at the front of the house.

He thought they were absolutely fantastic.

Over the next few days,

the police continue to search for the intruder

to put a name to the face, and Paul goes to thank Mike for his help.

He gave me a bottle of wine, I think two bottles of wine.

He came in and said, "My wife would have been in my property

"with a stranger, that is frightening."

A week goes by, and as there's no news that the burglar's been caught,

Paul and Trudy have an idea.

We released the pictures and video onto Facebook,

trying to find this guy.

It was shared hundreds of times.

What happened was unbelievable.

The police had many phone calls

and they all pointed to the same name of the same fella.

A week later, the police track down the intruder

and give Paul and Trudy the good news.

We felt very happy. It was almost like a victory in our own way.

Relief more than anything, once we knew that he was captured,

they got him in the end.

In court, the man was sentenced to two years in prison,

suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to do 230 hours of unpaid work,

six months' drug rehabilitation,

and had to pay costs and fines totalling £1,175.

Paul and Trudy didn't really know Mike before the break-in,

but now he's more than welcome to come round for a cuppa

any time he wants.

If it wasn't for him being vigilant and giving me that warning,

I could have walked in and come face-to-face with the intruder,

so it could've been a completely different outcome.

Burglars are generally opportunists.

They're always looking for things to make houses easier to get into,

so how can we avoid our home becoming attractive to thieves?

We do talk to burglars.

When we interview them, they tell us what they look for.

What they look for are ladders, wheelie bins,

garden furniture that they can use to get into the property.

It's getting into the mind-set of the burglar,

they don't want to be caught on the way to or from a job

so they won't carry tools to break in,

but if you've left a shovel, for example,

in your back garden, then that's perfect for them.

Quite often when we buy nice new items for the home,

whether it's a new television

or just something really important or expensive,

we leave the packaging on the driveway next to the bin

and it's just really good advertising to a thief

that you've got expensive property in the home.

If you're at work or on holiday,

you do everything you can to make your property appear like

you're actually in there.

Leave a light on.

If you're not going to be in, leave a timer with a light on.

Leave a radio on with a timer on.

Cars on the drive,

neighbours bringing in the milk and papers and suchlike.

One of the things they don't want is a dog.

Even the hint of a dog, they will move next door,

so even the sign for beware of the dog is a good deterrent.

A burglar breaks into a community radio station in the dead of night.

He's after valuable sound equipment.

The station is actually on air,

but he doesn't care if he pulls the plug,

leaving listeners high and dry.

The thief thinks he's being clever,

pointing the security camera towards the wall,

but he's made not one, but two schoolboy errors.

OK, you're listening to Wake Up With The Fizzogs on Black Country Radio.

Stourbridge in the West Midlands is the home of Black Country Radio,

a community station based in a local church

which was set up by Alex Totney and other volunteers in 2008.

I've always had an interest in radio from when I was a child

so it was a very natural step for me when Ofcom said,

"You can now set up your own radio station."

I found a bunch of like-minded individuals and the rest is history.

Alex scoured the area for top talent to present shows

and was delighted when local comedy legends

Deb, Sue and Jacky - known as the Fizzogs -

took him up on the offer.

We come in on a Friday morning and we do three hours

and we talk about everything and anything.

-Come on, then, hurry up, then.

-Excuse me, I'm thinking about it.

People just enjoy it. It's just fun.

-We do have to do the travel...

-Oh...

..but we only have to do it on the hour every hour.

As well as having to learn how to fill three hours of airtime,

these radio rookies had to master the broadcasting equipment.

It's almost like the mother ship, this desk is.

You've got sliders, buttons, lights.

But the trio took to radio presenting like ducks to water

and thousands started to tune into their show...

..until the time a thief in the night

takes the whole station offline

and the Fizzogs are left floundering.

It's 6:30am and the clock is counting down

to this week's Fizzog show.

Jacky arrives at the station early.

She's feeling on edge because Sue's away on holiday,

so today it's just going to be herself and Deb presenting.

We were really pumped up, waiting for the show,

so I've got all this going through my head, thinking, don't mess it up.

But it soon becomes apparent that a missing sidekick

is the least of Jacky's problems.

It was a complete shock when I got in

and where these mixing desks should have been,

there was just a table with two holes.

The broadcasting equipment has vanished into thin air.

I just thought the station's moved and they haven't told us.

All these things go through your head.

What if another radio station's got in and we've been sabotaged

or something like that?

The station is supposed to run every minute of every day,

and at the moment, its devoted listeners can't hear a thing.

We panic. If there's one or two seconds of dead air,

people are going to be thinking,

"We know they get it wrong

"but they don't normally get it quite this wrong."

Alex is summoned to solve the crisis.

I jumped in the car,

and it was a very, very, very worrying car journey.

When he arrives, he realises they've been burgled.

Most of the broadcasting equipment is missing,

but the thief has made a big mistake -

he hasn't taken the special power supplies

needed to run the kit.

A lot of what he'd actually stolen were absolutely useless to him.

How futile is that, then? You know, you've wasted your effort.

At the same time you've ruined everybody's day. Thanks for that.

To realise that we were going to lose

most of the day's programming, as well, because of it,

was, of course, extremely frustrating.

The police are called

and everyone hopes that the station security video

can come to the rescue of the radio show.

Our technical team can look at the cameras from their phones.

The team had set up an infrared camera pointing at the equipment

but when they view that recording...

..there's just a shot of a wall...

..but soon, all becomes clear.

When they rewind to earlier,

it shows the camera's view as it should be,

focused on the equipment.

It also shows someone entering the dark studio.

He flashes a cigarette lighter so he can see, and spots the camera.

At this point, some burglars might abort their mission -

but not this guy.

As soon as we showed that to the police,

they couldn't believe that they'd got such a clear view of him.

You've got a full facial.

Clearly not realising his image has already been recorded,

the burglar pushes the camera around to face the wall

and sets about stealing the equipment - and from that moment,

Black Country Radio stops broadcasting.

It was really sad that this station had been off for seven hours

and people hadn't had that service.

The police officers take away a copy of the recording

to see if any of their colleagues can recognise the burglar.

Meanwhile, Alex and his team

work feverishly to cobble some equipment together

so the show can go on.

By 2pm, Black Country Radio is back in action.

It was just a fantastic moment, really,

when all the hard work of that day had really paid off

and everybody went out to their cars

just to check to make sure that the audio was coming through OK.

It was a good end to what was a very dark day.

Then there's more good news.

The police have been successful tuning into the burglar's features.

Fortunately, one officer positively identified the individual

and he was caught very, very swiftly.

In court, the 38-year-old man pleaded guilty to burglary

and was sentenced to two years in prison.

I was having a lazy day yesterday and I thought, "Right,

-"I'm just going to watch..."

-A lazy day?

-Yeah, I did nothing.

I thought you said, "I was having a LADY day yesterday!"

The Fizzogs and their Black Country Radio colleagues

have now moved to new state-of-the-art premises

and publicity from their missing kit crisis

seems to have helped Alex and his team gain even more listeners.

The outpouring of support that we got was just amazing.

Despite that day, we've just gone from strength to strength,

which is brilliant.

That's it for today,

and that's it for a few more criminals

who've been caught red-handed.