Episode 2 Robbed, Raided, Reunited

We're on the case of a crime

that affects over one in 50 homes - burglary.

Coming up...

There's something just on the side of the door there.

Looks like it might be a tool mark, maybe a screwdriver.

We're out on patrol with the police

as they hunt down suspected burglars.

-I'm running!

-Why are you running? Stay there, stay there!

Jill, get in the car! Jill, get in the car!

And we'll show you how much it means

when stolen goods are reunited with their rightful owner.

We never thought we'd get them back.

From devastation to just sheer delight.

In Hertfordshire, crime rates are at a five-year low,

and that's thanks in part to the Hertfordshire Police initiative,

Operation Scorpion.

Scorpion is the anti-burglary unit of Hertfordshire Police.

Police, come to the door, please.

They use patrols and coordinated raids to target burglars,

robbers and vehicle thieves.

Since it began in April 2011,

there has been a dramatic reduction in burglaries

and Operation Scorpion has charged over 450 people for over 700 crimes.

This is about making a difference,

working hard, and locking up bad people.

But before Operation Scorpion Officers Jill Brown and Pippa Mason

can go burglar-hunting, they have a more menial task at hand.

This could be the best job of the evening, you never know!

Filthy.

This is our...

quality machine. It's undercover.

We've kept it so dirty to keep it undercover.

We do need to clean it. It's an embarrassment.

I love it. It's quite satisfying.

-JILL LAUGHS

-Clean car, clean mind!

How is it? Is it all right?

With their unmarked police car in a more presentable state,

Jill and Pippa can start their night patrol.

We're going to patrol the areas

that have been hit by burglaries during the day,

see if there's anyone scoping up houses to hit maybe tomorrow.

We'll see who's hanging around.

Anybody who looks like they shouldn't be in the area,

we'll stop them and chat to them.

Jill and Pippa have been friends for five years,

and for the past six months, they've had the chance to work together

as part of the Operation Scorpion team.

I love nights. There's naughty people out at night.

Normal people are inside watching EastEnders or have their feet up.

We like it at night. It's more fun.

As they patrol the local neighbourhoods,

their automatic numberplate recognition computer

alerts them to a car not registered locally.

Just give us the thumbs up, Pip.

This tiny detail could mean someone

has come into the area to commit crime,

so they decide to check it out.

It's a false alarm.

The driver has just bought the car and is sent on his way.

What starts as a quiet night for Jill and Pippa soon changes

when an emergency call comes in to police control.

RADIO BEEPS

Go ahead.

No worries. We're going to head there now.

Just let control know that we'll go.

The burglary has occurred in an affluent area of Harpenden

that has suffered a spate of burglaries in the last few months.

We're going to get there sharpish, because they've just rung it in,

just to prevent loss of any evidence and preserve the scene.

I've been to one there, I'd say about six months ago.

And then about a year ago,

there were a couple done down here on the left, unfortunately.

I'm fairly sure it's right down the end, on the right.

15 minutes after the call was made, Jill and Pippa arrive on the scene.

Can you get some gloves?

-Hello, are you Gareth?

-Yes.

Hi there, I'm PC Mason, from St Albans.

-Are we all right to come in?

-Yeah, sure.

Gareth returned home from work at 9.25 to find he'd been robbed.

The burglars have got in by smashing the window of the back door

and turning the key, which had been left in the lock.

The police advise people

not to leave a key in the back door for this very reason.

Whereabouts have they been, from what you can see?

-All over the place.

-They've done everywhere. Yeah.

-The laptop was on there.

-Yeah.

There was an ice-cream tub full of coins on the bottom shelf, there,

-cos that was where the power supply was plugged in.

-OK.

They'd gone in there to pull the power supply out.

There's a tablet computer from my daughter's room gone.

There's a watch gone from my room

and there was another ice-cream tub of cash in here, as well.

The heartless burglars have turned over both bedrooms

and have even stolen his daughter's money box.

Luckily for Gareth, his daughter isn't staying with him tonight

and won't have to see the house in such a state.

Pippa heads round the back to look for

any evidence the burglar might have left behind.

There is something just on the side of the door.

It looks like it might be a tool mark. Maybe a screwdriver.

So they've attempted to try and jemmy the door open before thinking,

"I'll just throw something at it."

-And you've just turned up at home this evening?

-Yeah, literally.

-What?

-9.30?

-9.25

Jill's just taken the gentleman through to the other room.

He hasn't been burgled before.

He's a bit shaken up by what's happened - understandably.

So she's just taken him through to take all the details from him

whilst he's sat down.

Does there seem to be much moved in this room?

-They haven't touched anything.

-No. This has just been left. OK.

Which is probably wide open because it's on the front of the house.

They tend to go to rooms that

if somebody walked past they wouldn't see them.

What we're going to do is we're going to knock on your neighbours

just to see if anybody's heard or seen anything.

Establishing a time frame for the burglary

will help Jill and Pippa with their investigation.

Every time we go to a burglary, we've got to do house to house.

It's called cocooning.

We're cocooning the house that was burgled.

So we're gaining as much evidence as we can

from surrounding neighbours.

Hello, sorry to trouble you so late.

Police officer from St Albans.

And it's not long before Pippa gets some useful information.

The lad next door was in this afternoon and he's heard a bang.

He didn't think anything of it at the time,

but it sounds like that was probably them going in the back.

He heard that between mid-day and one o'clock this afternoon.

So it might narrow down times so that we can look at vehicles

coming in to Harpenden.

The police can check CCTV and numberplate recognition cameras

to see if there were any suspicious vehicles in the area at that time.

Meanwhile, Jill uncovers something else of interest

at the neighbours' opposite.

We've noticed marks on the edge of the door.

I suspect somebody's had a go at getting in

and may well have been disturbed.

I think then that you've come back and then they've done the offski.

I swear blind I didn't actually see anybody.

Yeah, to be fair, you're not going to be looking, are you?

What SOCO can do is they can take an imprint of this tool

that's been used and that can help us to match up to other ones.

Jill knows it's quite common to find a street of homes,

all with marks on a door or a window.

Burglars have gone along looking for that one opportunity to break in.

This homeowner was lucky. But he also witnessed an incident

around the time of the burglary that could prove to be vital information.

He glanced across and it was a silver, old-style Mercedes

parked across the drive. You can see it's a drop kerb here.

It's almost been blocking his drive.

He's gone to get in his house and the car has sped off down the hill,

screeching its tyres. He didn't think much of it

because he thought it might have been a rainy, wet surface.

But now he's thought about it, he said it might have been linked.

So he's passed that information, we can do some other inquiries.

With information gathered from both scenes,

plus a sample of the smashed glass,

Jill and Pippa have plenty to go on whilst they wait for forensics.

There's two on the same street

and we've had one previously here this week.

So there's obviously somebody casing out this street up and down.

We're sorry to have met you in the circumstances but, hopefully,

we'll find some of your equipment.

-OK? Take care.

-OK. Thank you.

Jill has witnessed first-hand

the impact a burglary can have on many victims,

so in this particular case,

she's grateful for small mercies.

Thankfully his daughter wasn't in,

so that's a kind of godsend, isn't it?

His daughter wasn't there to witness the scene

and be worried that there was going to be

a burglar coming in in the night.

He seems all right. We've got a focus.

We've got something to get our teeth in.

We know what time they're coming here. We know they're coming here

and we can come here and catch them at it.

For Jill and Pippa, the hunt for the burglars continues.

And later, a routine stop ends in a hot pursuit.

And... Oh, running! Why are you running? Stay there!

Stay there!

During a burglary,

thieves often target small, valuable property such jewellery

or electrical items that are easy to carry and sell on.

This is what happened when Geoff and Pat Jebb were burgled in 2011.

They live in the picturesque town of Ottery St Mary in Devon.

Geoff's grandfather was a celebrated war hero.

He was awarded the prestigious Campaign Medal during

the Boer War, and went on to receive three more medals during his life.

He even received a medal for his work

at a munitions factory during the Second World War.

I mean, during the Blitz - you cannot imagine it - the factory

had 325 alerts in total

and he kept the factory running. This man was a hero.

And he was awarded the British Empire medal by King George VI.

Actually it was supposed to have been awarded by King George VI

but King George was very poorly at the time,

and so the medal came by post.

And as touching little message written by my mum,

all those years ago, saying...

"The king was very ill, mother and I were so disappointed

"because we were so looking forward to being with him."

Grandfather lived round the corner and he was always popping around

and I have very fond memories of him

Following the death of Geoff's grandfather,

the medals were passed to Geoff for safekeeping by his mother.

They remained in his possession for over half a century.

Over the passage of time,

photographs which one keeps of loved ones,

they tend to fade away but if you have something tangible,

like medals, it brings it all flooding straight back

and you're in direct contact with that person.

In 2011, Geoff and his wife Pat decided to use a friend's

lock-up garage to store some of their belongings.

Inadvertently, I sent away one of the boxes which contained

my grandfather's medals and other very personal possessions.

A few days later, Geoff decided to check the lock-up

and make sure that there were no mice nesting in his storage boxes.

Unfortunately, he was in for a shock.

No, we hadn't had mice. We'd had rats - two-legged rats.

Someone had been in the garage and rifled through Geoff's belongings.

And at the back of my mind I'm thinking,

"Oh, please, please, don't let it be grandfather's medals.

And, sure enough, the medal presentation box, it had gone.

All that remained was a note that my mother had given to me

saying "These medals were awarded to your grandfather.

"Please take care of them."

I felt totally devastated.

The medals which I'd treasured, the family had treasured, had gone.

When he first came home on that day, he walked through the gate

and he just looked as white as a sheet.

I said, "What on earth is the matter?"

And he said, "Somebody's stolen my grandfather's medals."

He said, "I've let down my mum.

"I've let down the family." And he was just so upset.

He was absolutely inconsolable

because he felt that he had just let everybody down

and I couldn't convince him that it wasn't his fault -

that in all good faith he'd just put these things away

and we thought they'd be safe. He was just absolutely devastated.

I felt ill. I felt...terrible.

The Jebbs called Devon and Cornwall Police

and reported the senseless crime.

DC Blain Bishop was the investigating officer on the case.

One of our scenes of crime officers went out to

the break-in at the garage and, sadly,

there was no forensic value

that we were able to gain from examining that scene.

There were no witnesses, no CCTV, so the options of tracing those goods

and finding who committed the offence

were rather limited at that point in time.

With no active lines of inquiry, Blain continued to investigate

the case, and the Jebbs decided to conduct some research of their own.

We try to do our bit by placing adverts in newspapers

and through the Internet.

We were trying to track down medals for sale.

We couldn't believe how many medals were stolen.

But there's so many missing,

and so many people in the same boat that we were. It's so sad.

Their value is immeasurable.

It's 100 years of history, and it's a tangible link between me

and my grandfather.

And it had a devastating effect. He was really heartbroken

It seemed that Geoff's medals had disappeared without a trace.

There were no real active lines of inquiry to identify

who had committed the offence.

They had force of entry but we had no idea who that might be.

We just drew a complete blank.

Back on patrol in Hertfordshire, PCs Jill Brown

and Pippa Mason have already spotted something suspicious.

We've just seen a couple of young looking lads go past us

that we're trying to catch up with now

so that we can stop them and have a chat to them.

They were driving quite a souped-up Audi which is sometimes used

to commit burglaries. It's quite powerful.

So we're going to see if we can catch up with it now,

pull it over and have a chat to the two lads inside.

Pippa directs the car safely off the main road and into a pub car park.

-Hello. I bet you know why you've been stopped, don't you?

-Why is that?

Have you've been stopped before?

-It's a powerful car, isn't it?

-I've never been stopped.

-Haven't you?

Can I see that? Can I see your licence?

Have you been stopped? Police trouble before?

-Never been in trouble?

-No.

-Never arrested?

-Never. No, never arrested.

OK. Cool.

The reason we wanted to have a chat, we've had a few burglaries

in Harpenden which is obviously where you've just come through.

They're generally committed in quite powerful cars, you know.

So anyone, at the moment, that we're coming across, young lads driving

powerful cars, we're going to be stopping and having a chat.

Some I'm going to run all your details through.

Are you known to police at all? No?

The two young men seem above board and are happy to co-operate.

But Jill has a nose for trouble.

-It smells...

-You've been stopping everybody?

Jill has found a cannabis cigarette in the car.

But she believes the two occupants might have more drugs hidden away.

Now is the time to fess up and just give it to me, all right?

Because I don't want to have to get somebody out to search.

Given this opportunity, I'd give it to you now. Honestly.

I'm fair with people that's fair,

but I don't believe that that is what I can smell.

Whilst Pippa searches the car,

Jill calls for a male officer to search the suspects.

PC Paul Saunders and Special Constable Simon Tomaney

soon arrive on the scene.

Have you got anything on you, buddy?

-No.

-Nothing?

-No.

-Nothing at all?

We pulled this car over just because it's a high-powered car,

a couple of young lads

with potential to be burglars or something else, you know.

It turns out they've got a little bit of cannabis on them,

which we can deal with at the roadside, but we want to

just check they haven't got anything else on them, or ulterior motive.

-And...

-SHE GASPS

Why is he running? Stay there! Stay there!

Incredibly, mid-search, the driver has bolted.

Paul chases on foot whilst Jill and Pippa follow in the car.

Thanks to Paul's quick reactions,

the suspect is caught a mere 70 seconds later.

-Get in the car. What are you running for?

-I was scared! I was scared.

You don't run when you get scared!

You could end up getting yourself

and my officer run over on the main road!

-Now get in the car!

-Head down, sit in the car.

What are you hiding? What are you hiding?

Nothing, I had a small, tiny bit of cannabis on me.

You don't run for a bit of cannabis, mate. What have you got?

That was it! I'm being honest with you, that was it.

-Whereabouts did you throw it?

-I threw into the bush,

I just threw it, I literally... By the road.

-As I turned that corner, I threw it.

-Right, mate, listen.

You're going to be brought back to the police station

for a thorough search.

I believe you got something else in your shoe.

Jill and Pippa need to check out the suspect's story and check

that it was cannabis that he threw away.

They start searching the area.

It's really tough trying to catch them.

He said he's dumped whatever he had in his hand as he ran.

All it needs is a quick flick of the wrist,

and that's it, it's game over.

Yeah, he ran off on this main road, which is

so dangerous because it's a fast road, a main road.

I was more worried for my colleague running after him in black uniform.

He could have got himself killed. I just think he's hiding something.

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Oh, it's annoying!

So it's time to call in the dog unit.

BARKING

This is exactly how it goes with us, we follow nice cars,

thinking, a couple of young lads, nice car,

then we get tied up with the arrest.

We've got to deal with whatever we come across.

We weren't expecting this, but you never know what to expect.

We were hoping it was going to be our burglars, but sadly they aren't.

Next time. Next car.

The dog team have found nothing.

Now we've got to go to the police station to do strip searches.

Not only is this frustrating, it also means that Jill

and Pippa's valuable time is being wasted,

when they should be out hunting for Gareth's burglar.

The two suspects are processed and searched,

but nothing of interest is found.

Jill, Pippa and the team have spent over three hours

dealing with these time wasters.

Let's hope that Harpenden aren't getting burgled

while we're here dealing with something else unrelated.

Yeah, I want to get back there, catch some burglars.

Unfortunately, after finishing processing the two men,

Jill and Pippa's worst fears are confirmed.

It's really annoying.

We've just seen that whilst we've been in here,

two burglaries have actually been committed,

one attempted burglary, one successful burglary

back in the area where we should have been patrolling.

So had he not run away from us, there would have been a chance

that we could have caught those guys, whoever has done that.

But as it is, we've been in custody for that time.

Back on patrol,

Jill and Pippa are determined to catch the Harpenden burglar.

It's not long before they spot someone they want to talk to.

Oh, hang on, let's have a chat to him.

-Hello. How are you?

-I'm all right.

-I haven't seen you for a long time.

Oh, my god! You've just realised who it is.

It turns out the man is a reformed offender well-known to Jill.

-I haven't seen you for a long time.

-Been out of trouble, innit?

-Yeah, that's good.

-Since I've come to St Albans, yeah.

-Yeah.

-I've got two little ones, now.

-Two!

-Two more.

-Two more! How many have you got now, then?

-Four.

-Aw! Bless.

The driver, I know her from Hatfield when I was a bad boy.

But, yeah - I ain't got a bad word to say about her.

I forgot her name. I've known her for years. Quite helpful, you know.

It's people like her that are the reason I'm doing volunteer work.

It's all good.

Going to prison got me out of trouble. Once is enough.

-Right, well, nice to see you, anyway.

-And you.

-Take it easy.

-Take care.

-See you.

-See you soon.

In our job we do get to know the roads around here.

So, I haven't seen him for a long time, so it's nice to bump into him.

Yeah, we do tend to get to know them and they get to know us,

so we get a bit of a relationship with them, which is good.

Jill and Pippa's night comes to an end,

but the search for the burglar in Harpenden continues.

Geoff and Pat Jebb had all but given up hope of finding

Geoff's grandfather's precious war medals that were

stolen from a storage locker in Devon.

We just drew a complete bank.

However, just a couple of weeks after the break-in,

there was an interesting turn of events for DC Blain Bishop.

Here at Exmouth, we had a recent spike in vehicle thefts

and we did targeted patrols with uniform officers going out at night.

One of the uniformed officers found a man hiding behind cars

and he was dressed in dark clothes,

he had a head torch on him and he was wearing gloves.

He had items we would associate with committing crime,

namely he had a screwdriver on him.

So that man was arrested for what we would call going equipped to steal.

So he was brought into police custody

and I interviewed him later that day.

Whilst he was being interviewed,

we conducted a search of an address he was using here in Exmouth.

When we did the search, there was an item

left on the shelf in the corner of a room and it was a first aid box,

and, when the officers opened it up, it contained a series of medals.

This was a remarkable breakthrough for Blain and the team.

And research later overnight revealed that those medals

contained in that bag actually belonged to Mr and Mrs Jebb,

and we were able to identify that

they came from the break-in to the garage.

And this was the moment he had been hoping for ever since

he heard about Geoff and Pat's burglary.

Phone rang and I went running downstairs

and halfway downstairs I heard the answer machine kick in

and this voice said, "I think I've found Geoff's medals."

Finally, Blain got to do what every police officer loves to do -

return stolen goods to their rightful owner.

I popped over to his address.

-Within half an hour...

-He was on the doorstep.

-..DC Blain on the doorstep.

-Yep.

His wife invited me in and it was clearly very early

in the morning, he'd just got up, he was having his breakfast and...

It's an unusual visitor to the door,

a police officer at that time in the morning.

-It was a wonderful moment, it really was.

-It was great.

-It was absolutely great.

-We were so pleased to see him on the doorstep.

"Mr Jebb, your medals." "Oh! Blain, come on in!"

We never thought we'd get them back.

No, we didn't. No, we thought they'd gone. We really did.

He was overwhelmed to see the medals again,

something which he'd written off ever seeing.

It really meant a hell of a lot to him.

He was overwhelmed. Tears of joy, bless him. So it was really nice.

From devastation to just sheer delight.

What a result. Good old Blain.

You sometimes get those few moments which are really rewarding

and they sort of give you a warm feeling

that you've done something good,

and that's ultimately what I signed up for, to make a difference.

To change people's habits and stop them offending,

and to do some good, really, out there.

To have these medals returned to me feels absolutely marvellous.

This is the Boer War campaign medal. This was struck in 1902.

A beautiful thing to have.

Another very important medal, the BEM - British Empire Medal.

And this was awarded by King George VI to Grandad.

And two further medals, this one known as the King Edward VII medal.

That's a lovely thing to have.

And this one, it's an unusual one,

and it's Queen Victoria's Jubilee medal for Berwick-upon-Tweed.

I'm honoured to have been put in the position

of being custodian of the medals over the years,

and it is such a relief now to have them safely returned.

Now for an update on today's stories.

The burglary in Hertfordshire remains unsolved, however,

the spate of burglaries in Harpenden has stopped,

and the team continue patrols in the area.

The suspect who ran away from police received

a caution for possession of cannabis.

The other suspect was released without charge.

In the case of Geoff Jebb's stolen war medals,

John Farer was found in possession of the medals

and was sentenced to eight months for handling stolen goods plus

another nine-month sentence for a separate burglary offence.

Geoff and Pat decided to go to the court hearing,

and were in for a pleasant surprise.

We were delighted that one of the statements that Blain

had taken from us was read by the judge and it was good that he was

going to take our feelings into consideration,

and that was reflected in the sentence that he passed down.

That's all from us today, we'll see you next time.

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