Cynthia Crime Scene Rescue

In the UK, there's a burglary every 45 seconds.

But right across Britain, determined police forces

are leading the battle to stop the thieves in their tracks.

Can you open the door? Otherwise, entry's going to have to be forced.

For the victims of these crimes,

it can take months or even years to overcome the trauma.

I'm also thinking that maybe they might come back,

so there's an element of being frightened as well.

In this series, we're about to show them and you

how we can all fight back against the burglars.

This is Crime Scene Rescue.

On today's show, we uncover the story of recently widowed Cynthia.

She's been left anxious and scared after burglars

forced their way into her house while she was upstairs asleep.

I've not been sleeping very well at all. It's a terrible feeling.

You know, to think someone's getting into the house.

You're by yourself. You feel awful.

As the police search for the criminals,

we attempt to get Cynthia on the road to recovery as we overhaul

her security and hopefully rekindle her love for her home.

It's exactly what I wanted and I didn't realise.

West Yorkshire is policed by around 5,000 officers

who look after an area of over 700 square miles.

The force here is trying to crack down on the criminals

who steal from local homeowners and I'm joining their officers

on the frontline to discover just how they are tackling the burglars.

While I'm here, I also want to do all I can

to help the innocent victims of this terrible crime.

West Yorkshire Police. What's your emergency?

It's just before eight in the morning

and a burglary is being phoned in.

Is there anybody in the house at the moment?

PC Kevin Johnson is attending the break in at Cynthia's house.

She was asleep upstairs when the burglars came in,

took her keys and then stole her car.

Her son, Tim, has come round to give his mum some moral support.

Can you find your bag and your purse? Have you still got them?

I feel it probably will happen again.

It's very frightening.

I don't know what I'm going to do, really.

PC Johnson is examining the entry point where the criminals broke in.

You can see here,

they've put something in the window frame there to lever it open.

It's the same here. You can see the marks.

On the ground down there is an additional lock that Cynthia's son, Tim,

had put on to beef up the security after a similar incident last year

where a window around the corner was forced open and they broke in that way.

This is the second time in recent years that Cynthia has been burgled.

The last time, her husband was still alive to support her

and her son, Tim, is really worried about how they can make his mum's home more secure.

Even though we've made the windows as secure as we can,

obviously they still forced the window locks of.

We can't do any more than what we've done, really.

The scenes of crime officer has just arrived

and he's getting straight to work, gathering forensic evidence

and it looks like the burglars have left something behind.

A footprint.

Meanwhile, Cynthia's distress is growing.

She was asleep in her bedroom when the sound of the burglars woke her.

She rushed downstairs and nearly came face-to-face with the thieves.

It's frightening. What if they come back again?

That's the frightening thing.

There are a lot of people like this, on their own, in houses,

that people can get into with a little bit of effort

and terrify people.

If I'd have come down quicker, it would have been really frightening.

Our forensic people have attended at the scene.

We've got some forensic evidence from there.

We are waiting for the results of some enquiries to see

whether the car has shown up on any cameras around and about

and as soon as we get any leads in that direction, obviously,

we'll pursue those and we'll take it from there.

Cynthia's anguish has really struck a chord with me.

If anyone deserves to feel safe in her home, then she does.

I'm desperate to help in any way I can

and I've come to see how she's feeling.

Cynthia, you have got your son, Tim, with you right now

and the first thing I want to ask you is how you are?

I have bad days and good days. It is not always easy every day.

I can see it's very difficult for you to talk about what happened.

But the thought that someone has somehow managed

to get into your home and steal those keys

and disappear with that car must really have been a shock for you.

Terrible. Frightened. It makes me frightened at night as well.

And, Tim, obviously, you know,

you can't have your mum being like this, can you?

With the best will in the world, you cannot be here 24/7

and it must be devastating for you to see your mum so upset.

Knowing there was the first burglary,

and it turned out to be very easy to get into

and I put extra window locks on and then we get the repeat burglary.

You know, what I did made no difference.

It's just a simple case of one crowbar and they're in

and they could come back at any time unless we improve the security.

We need to change that.

We need to change that because when you go to bed, I want you

to go to bed to relax and to sleep and that's what you deserve.

You don't deserve to go up to bed and be scared if this happens again.

OK? So we're going to try and change that.

I need to help Cynthia turn things around.

My plan is to overhaul the security of her house

and make it as safe as possible.

I also want to make her bedroom a special place to sleep.

But I can't do all this alone.

I'm going to hit the phone

and assemble a crack team of community spirited trades people,

prepared to give their all in transforming Cynthia's home.

Hi, Neil, it's Rav. Are you all right?

Hi, is that Theresa?

-Hi, Fay, it's Rav. How are you?

-I'm fine, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you, but I'm after a favour from you.

As you're in such a good mood, you might be able to help me out.

It's a horror story and to make matters worse,

she's just lost her partner.

She lives alone and it's really upset her.

I need somebody to have a look at the place and see what we can do.

We really need to help her and I just want to update her security

and make her safer in her own home.

If you do an assessment, that would be great.

We really need to help and I think you're the man for the job.

I'll send you the details and I'll see you at the house. Thanks for your help on this.

There's no time like the present to get started

and begin fixing up Cynthia's home.

To make sure we give her the best possible security upgrade,

I've called in an expert.

Crime prevention specialist, Dave Harrison.

This is the front of Cynthia's home.

You've had a brief look around.

What can we do to improve the security here for her?

First and foremost, the obvious thing is the lighting.

That needs to be in a different position.

An offender can quite easily get to that light.

You're looking at the front here. It looks good.

First impressions, the security is a reasonable standard

but when you start to look closer at it, there are problems here.

Let's have a look at this porch area.

You can see the front door just beyond.

There is one additional lock you can see that's been put on at the top there.

Personally, I would like to see another one on the bottom.

Absolutely. It then prevents being kicked in.

So that would fully secure that door, which is quite a good door. It's a solid door.

This house does have a working alarm system

but it's on a keypad and Cynthia does find that very difficult

to remember to input the codes to arm the alarm and disarm it.

I think there are problems here. It's putting her off using it.

We need an alarm here. It's a big house. It's isolated.

Surely, what we have to look at is changing the system.

That all sounds really good. That's the front of the house.

Let me show you around the side because there is more I want to show you there.

You see these windows, this is actually where they entered.

We just need to strengthen it somehow. What can we do?

When you first look at the shell of this building, it does look OK.

But when you look closely, you can see they've got to snap locks

at the bottom there and the snap locks haven't actually done the job.

That's because the fixings weren't correct.

-Is this something that can be rectified?

-Yes.

What we'll be doing is putting two new window locks on.

The screws will actually go through into the body of the framework.

We are also looking at the possibility of putting a frame

around here on all the windows.

So some relatively small changes are going to make a massive difference

to her safety and security, living in this house.

-That's correct.

-Excellent.

We need to get a move on and my earlier calls have

paid off as the first people from my team of community minded

trades people arrive ready for action.

The first job is to change the lock on Cynthia's front door.

Changing the existing keep that was on the door to fitting the new locks

that we are fitting, you can see there is a lot more depth in there.

It's much more encased.

There are more fixings for the screws

so it makes it much more substantial and a lot more secure.

It's harder to actually force this lock open.

But her windows are also in need of some attention.

One of the weaknesses or weak points that you identified were the windows

and you've done a lot of work today.

Tell me what you've put in to strengthen those.

This one, we've actually had to repair this one.

We've upgraded the screws in the snap locks,

and actually put longer screws in there because it was fitted just

with the original screws and we've also put the window restrictors.

These have been specially made for this property and these windows.

You clearly massively upgraded the security on the windows and that was our big area of concern.

Son, Tim, worries about his mum,

as she often struggles to set her burglar alarm.

But one of my team, Neil,

has come up with an ingenious solution to the problem.

One of the issues your mother has is forgetting to set the alarm.

Had the alarm been set then the intruders would set that off

when they entered the property.

And, Neil, you think that this ingenious device could be the answer.

As you can see on the front of it, there are two sensors on there.

When this is on a wall,

if you break that censor you can actually record a message into this.

So when you break that censor,

it actually speaks a recorded message that you said.

So for example, when she's going to bed, if she was to walk

past this area it would say, "Mum, make sure you set the alarm."

Mum, if you're going to bed, don't forget to set the alarm.

OK. So that should have recorded. So if I play this back.

'Mum, if you're going to bed, don't forget to set the alarm.'

Fantastic. Simple as that. Do you think that would help her out?

Definitely. That's the answer to the problem.

The security at Cynthia's house is moving forward

and the police have also been at work.

The forensic evidence from the scene has been processed

and officers continue to look for her stolen car.

West Yorkshire Police also have a range of initiatives to help

rebuild the confidence of pensioners like Cynthia.

Teresa Dmoch has stopped by to explain

the benefits of their Nominated Neighbour scheme.

You were burgled a short time ago. How vulnerable do you still feel?

I'm still vulnerable and I'm frightened at night.

It's a big house and you think,

-which angle are they going to try to get in at.

-Absolutely.

Basically, what you do is you nominate a neighbour.

It could be a neighbour

or it could be a member of your family or a friend

and all you do is put their details into this box here.

Their name, address and telephone number.

You hold this up at the window and it says,

"I don't recognise you. Please contact my nominated neighbour."

It limits the amount of conversation you have to have with that person.

Cynthia does have neighbours in the area

and this is key to improving her confidence

and it's also bringing the community together to look after one another.

Well, just maybe,

this scheme will go some way towards easing Cynthia's fears.

Since the break-in, she's had trouble sleeping.

I really want to do something to lift her spirits.

I plan to give her bedroom a facelift.

Cynthia's home holds a special importance

as it was built by her late husband.

So clearly, I need to get things just right.

Designer Fay Butterworth is here to help.

What can we do to make this room feel like her home again?

I've had a chat with Cynthia this morning.

Her one concern was her late husband passed away not so long ago,

so she is attached to a few items within the room.

So we don't want to give her too much of a change

where she loses certain memories which were obviously very precious to her.

So we've decided to work with the existing furniture,

come up with a scheme that is not too much of a change,

but just to give her a nice new feel to the room.

Give her a nice feature wallpaper with some florals in,

keep some pink so it's nice and warm and cosy.

Just give her a new look with curtains and some other accessories.

But obviously keeping all the memories for her as well.

That sounds great. She certainly needs some help and hopefully we can do that for her.

Yes, definitely.

Cynthia is temporarily moving out of her beloved home so we can continue our work

and son, Tim, feels there's been a change in her mood.

I keep reminding her what's happening

and what's happening to the house and how it's going to be made more secure,

she is really positive about it.

Before, she really knew that somebody could easily break into the house.

-You will be able to sleep a bit better.

-Yes, I will.

It seems we are slowly moving in the right direction

with Cynthia's confidence, but there is still much more to do.

My second wave of local heroes are on site

and it's time to up the ante.

Ladies and gents, thank you for coming round so quickly.

The reason I got you here is to help Cynthia out, who lives in this house.

Lots of you know her. I've got lots of family and friends here.

But for those that don't, she's just been burgled

and as you can imagine it has really, really upset her.

For that reason, I need your help.

So I really want to fix this place up.

Let's make it as safe and secure as possible.

On the inside, I want to make it feel like home again.

At the moment, she's so scared to even go to sleep.

So if we can change that, we will give this lady a bit of happiness back in her life.

We've got a really deserving woman here who really needs your help.

What we don't have is a lot of time.

So let's get in there and let's get this place fixed up.

ALL: Yay!

As work starts in the bedroom,

outside, we are already installing security lights well out of reach.

That, Michelle, is going to go in the hall or the landing

so you can swap that over so Cynthia can keep it.

And having dropped his mum off,

Tim has returned to assist with the makeover. He's not alone though.

Tagging along is Cynthia's granddaughter, Amy, who is getting stuck in.

Amy, you look like you're doing a good job there.

You've got most of the paint on the walls!

Do you think your nan is going to like her bedroom

-when she comes home and sees all the work that's gone on?

-Yes.

You're doing a bit of painting.

Do you think she's going to be surprised when she sees this

and sees that you and your dad have both been painting in her bedroom?

-She will think it's weird!

-But she'll like it though.

If she doesn't like it, you'll say, "Well, they did it!"

-Your dad is doing all the work here!

-Have I missed anything?

We can't leave anything to chance to stop the burglars coming back

and I want this place lit up with all-round protection.

But are we on schedule with the bedroom?

Massive transformation in Cynthia's bedroom already.

Tell me what's happened and what's still to go.

We weren't initially going to do anything with the wardrobes

because Cynthia is extremely attached to them.

However, they had been previously painted

and to be honest they really needed to be freshened up.

So we got the decorators to repaint those today.

-So you've kept them the same colour, but you're just sprucing them up a bit.

-Exactly.

What I'm going to do, once we put the handles on,

I'm just going to re-gilt wax the mouldings like she had before.

This lovely wall here as well. That's the one wall that you feature wallpapered.

It's not too overpowering, is it? It's not really bright.

It's going to be quite subtle and you think she's going to like that.

I think so. Cynthia doesn't like anything to powerful in a room or overbearing,

where a lot of wallpapers these days are going to be too much for her.

There's a lot of work to be done here and it's getting dark already.

She's coming home tomorrow lunchtime.

-Are you going to have this all done?

-We will have it done.

It's going to be a late night but it will be done, definitely.

While my troops toil into the night,

West Yorkshire Police are still at work.

The investigation into Cynthia's burglary is continuing

and officers remain on the hunt for her stolen car.

In relation to Cynthia's vehicle,

they are obviously conducting enquiries into the car.

With these vehicles, obviously, they still need petrol.

So we will look at local petrol stations, the forecourts.

At times, we've had make-offs without payments

with those specific vehicle types.

Another one of the checks we conduct is on the automated number plate recognition system,

which is a system which is live in West Yorkshire

and up and down the country into all major cities, really.

So in the event the vehicle does pass by one of these points,

that will trigger it and an alert will come through

to the police in that area.

Unfortunately there haven't been any sightings of Cynthia's car,

but the police are still looking.

Meanwhile, back at the house,

my team of dedicated tradesmen and women are finally finishing up for the night.

It's early morning but work has already begun in Cynthia's bedroom.

As the final touches take place, burglary expert Dave Harrison

has returned to give his opinion on our security overhaul.

We've added a host of exterior lights, well out of reach.

The door has been strengthened and fitted with stronger locks.

We've installed a new high-tech intruder alarm

which is ready for action.

We've also tightened up the security of the windows

which includes fitting window restrictors to prevent access.

So what's the rating?

For the house itself, I am really, really pleased.

They've done a fantastic job.

If I was marking this, I would certainly mark it nine out of ten.

Well, you don't get better than that from Dave.

Cynthia and her son Tim are on their way home to see the fix up for the first time.

I hope they like it.

The moment of truth has arrived.

-Hiya, Tim.

-Hi, Rav.

-Welcome back. Step over here with me. Good to see you.

-Yes.

-Are you all right?

-Fine, thank you.

-You don't like your glasses, do you? Do you want to take them off?

-Yes.

I know you don't like them.

Welcome back.

We've made a few little changes to your house to make you much safer.

-I'm curious.

-Do you want to see what we've done?

Good. Curious is good.

First of all, we've put a light up there. It's nice and high.

That's to make it nice and bright when it's dark.

We don't want anyone sneaking around.

We've also got lights around the whole perimeter of your house,

-down both sides and the back.

-OK.

If you look in the corner, you see the big yellow disc?

That's a brand-new burglar alarm we've put in.

We've made it nice and easy.

It's just one button like you would use to open that car.

We've also got a button you can press and the alarms will go off.

If you hear any noises and you are not happy,

press that when you're in bed, the alarm will go off.

-Is that a little bit of peace of mind?

-It is.

Cynthia, if you look carefully,

look at where your kitchen window is, you see that small bar?

What that does is stop the windows opening big enough for someone to crawl in.

-Good.

-We think that's how the intruder got in before.

I think it was, yes.

They certainly left that way because you saw him, didn't you?

-No-one can crawl in now.

-That's good.

There's a couple more things

I want to show you on the inside of the front door.

Follow me and I'll show you.

OK, Cynthia and Tim, if you just follow me,

I just want to show you what we have done to your front door.

And, Tim.

Notice here, if you have a look, we have got two nice and shiny

brand-new door locks which are much stronger than before.

You might have heard a familiar voice when we walked in.

Did you hear your son Tim?

-'Don't forget to lock the door.'

-Yes.

There you go.

That's Tim telling you, don't forget to lock the door, both locks as well.

-That's going to go off every time you walk in through the door, OK?

-Yes, that is fine.

Cynthia, that's the security taken care of.

There's also a little extra we have done for you, because you told me

how nervous you are about sleeping here after what happened.

I want to change that so we've had some people around,

some friends that have done some work

and I want you to take a look at your bedroom

because hopefully now you can feel you can relax a little bit more.

-Do you want to take a look?

-Yes.

-A bit nervous?

-Excited?

-Definitely.

Good. Follow me. Let's go and take a look.

As well as transforming Cynthia's security,

we wanted to eliminate the negativity brought about by the break in

and help her find a little piece of happiness again in her bedroom.

My team of volunteers pulled out all the stops

but I have no idea whether she will like what I am about to show her.

Take a look at your bedroom.

What do you think?

Lovely.

Is it you, Cynthia?

It is, it's exactly what I wanted.

I didn't realise. But you've made a feature of that paper.

It's really lovely.

I didn't expect all this - lampshades and other things.

-Nice pictures on your windowsill.

-Yes. Lovely.

And if you look behind, lots of nice memories for you.

I'll just let you have a quick look at those pictures.

You like your glasses now, don't you? You have a look.

What we didn't want was for you to sit in this room

and have bad memories of what happened.

The main thing, do you think that you are now going to be able to

-relax a little bit more?

-I think so, yes.

-And, Tim?

-It's fantastic.

I would never have thought of doing this.

It needed someone with a bit more imagination than me.

-It really is nice.

-It's lovely.

As you know, this has happened very quickly,

for your bedroom to look like it does now

and in order for that to happen, lots of people have rushed around.

These are all local people that work in the trade

that heard what happened to you and wanted to help.

They all wanted to help you out.

They would love to say hello to you.

I'm sure, if you saw them, you would like to say thank you, wouldn't you?

Yes.

Well, Cynthia, they are in your front garden right now.

Can I peek through the window?

We can do better than that, how about we go out the front

-and say a little thank you to them?

-Yes, all right then.

Let's go.

-If I can get you out of this room!

-It's lovely.

They say a smile is worth a thousand words.

How true.

There are some people here.

-Good heavens!

-They wanted to meet you. Come on, Cynthia.

Watch the step.

There you go. You go off and meet the people.

Go and say hello to the people who made this possible. There you go.

I can't see who everybody is.

I'm so pleased we have been able to help Cynthia out.

Such a lovely lady.

And that is the result of hard work, elbow grease

and a massive amount of community spirit.

The local community have done themselves and Cynthia proud

and the police are here to give their verdict.

It's really good to see everybody here from the local community,

neighbours, local tradesmen, all helping out,

chipping in to make this lady feel safer in her home.

It reinforces the fact that with community spirit and everybody

getting involved, together with us, working hard, we will be successful.

The main thing is that you feel happier and safer in your home.

-All the locks and everything are so good.

-Good.

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