Episode 6 Robbed, Raided, Reunited

We're on the case of a crime that affects over one in 50 homes - burglary. Coming up...

They've had a good go at it. It hasn't been that easy to get into

because they've had to go up and down the doorframe.

We're with the police in their pursuit of justice,

as they carry out their raids.

Stand still. Stand still. Don't do anything stupid like running off,

cos he'll chase you down, all right?

And we'll show you how much it means

when stolen goods are reunited with their rightful owner.

I am amazed at the police. I really am.

I think they've done a great job.

It's 2.30pm in St Albans.

PC Jill Brown has just started her shift,

and already a burglary call has come in.

Andy Greenman is out with Jill today.

He's a detective with eight years' experience,

currently assigned to the burglary team.

We'll speak to the occupant, see how he found it

and try and keep it as preserved as possible for Scenes Of Crime.

Jill joined Operation Scorpion two years ago

on a three-month placement. She enjoyed catching burglars so much,

she's been with the unit ever since.

At the moment we just know it's untidy, searched,

looks like the telly's gone, electrical equipment.

In St Albans at the minute, generally it's been targeting items

they can put in their pocket, of value.

We'll have to see. It might be something different.

Different crew, maybe.

Less than 20 minutes after the 999 call,

Jill and Andy arrive at the home of Stephen Strange.

Hiya.

-OK. What have you found when you've come home, then?

-That, for starters.

Yes...

The burglar has turned over the living room,

stealing a large widescreen television and a games console.

But in the kitchen, Jill is interested

with what he's left behind.

If you don't mind just coming back here for us,

just because I can see footprints on the floor there.

-Yeah, they've forced that back door.

-OK.

This messy burglar has left his mark all over the kitchen floor.

They've come through the back garden,

obviously traipsing in some mud,

come through the entry point, and they've left decent prints there

that might be relative to other burglaries that have happened.

They'll be compared to the database of people who have been into custody

and they'll be captured and we can get a make

and model of shoe that,

if we did have an idea of an offender,

it can be compared against shoes they've already got.

-Where else have they been in the house?

-Upstairs as well.

The bedrooms have also been turned over.

The callous burglars have even stolen Stephen's daughter's piggy bank.

It feels pretty sickening. Inside, I'm feeling emotional.

I know that somebody's been upstairs, in my bedroom,

and gone all through my things,

so my wife's just phoned me and said,

do we want to stay there tonight or should we go to her parents'?

What we'd prefer is if we can get SOCO in first,

then it allows you to have a proper look.

Just to preserve...

There are some good shoe prints downstairs, that's good for us.

Muddy prints in here. MOBILE RINGS

It looks like here, there might be something on the handle.

-OK.

-OK?

But prints aren't the only thing that this burglar has left behind.

They've left an expensive Mac computer, which amazes me.

They've left jewellery upstairs, they've left hard drives

which they've obviously found in drawers upstairs.

One thing that they have taken is a Silver Jubilee coin,

worthless to the burglar but of great sentimental value to Stephen.

-That was just sat there?

-Yeah. It's not massive.

It's a £5 coin that's worth about £5.01.

It's from 1977, it's from my mum but, you know...

Maybe they're just keen antiques collectors. Who knows?

A routine theft for a burglar often results in great upset

to the victim.

One of Jill's favourite parts of the job is putting together pieces

of the puzzle to track down burglars.

You can see on here that they've used a small screwdriver tool

to jimmy opened this back door. They've had a good go at it.

It hasn't been that easy to get into, so they have had a go

up and down the doorframe.

Quite a few times they've tried.

A general person walking along the street shouldn't have any sort

of tool or anything on them unless they can justify it.

You can see here there's easy access up and down to the garden,

so I would imagine this is where they've come in.

We've got high fencing here, it would be more difficult to come in across here.

Just looking for anything that they might have taken from the house

and then, en route out, they might have dumped it,

lost it or thrown a tool they've used to get into the property.

So if somebody else has heard them or made a noise,

they might have dropped it on the way out.

Normal sort of burglary at the moment is going for cash

and jewellery. Smaller objects that are easy to carry out.

With this one, it's strange that they've taken big, bulky TVs,

two of them, plus a Wii console.

They've taken another 32-inch telly from the kitchen.

They would've had to take it down the alleyway and back into the street.

-It's a bit risky.

-It just seems bizarre.

40 minutes after the incident was reported,

Scenes Of Crime Officer Pete Harper arrives

to collect forensic evidence.

I'll show you what we've got first.

There are some decent prints coming in from the entry point.

-There's quickly a lot of tool marks on the door.

-Yeah.

It looks like a screwdriver.

Pete's trained eye spots mud on some of the tool marks.

This could be the implement used to force the patio doors open.

-I'm not going to touch it on the door, but...

-See if it matches up.

It probably isn't, but it's just that...

It doesn't match, so...

People don't realise, whatever they've left lying in their garden,

people generally use to get into their house.

So we always say, "Lock them up, put them in a shed, keep them secured."

You don't want your house to get burgled.

Pete starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

It's taping, fibre tapings from the door handle.

It's obvious from the weave that it's a woolly glove or

industrial glove mark on there, so it's obviously wearing gloves

and it's a grip mark like that.

SOCO has just said that they've picked up some fibres

from the door handle.

Which is good for us, because if we find some gloves on somebody,

or find gloves, we can match them up to the fibres at the scene,

so we can have an idea, potentially, who has done it.

Back in the house,

Andy goes through the details of the burglary with Stephen.

When you've a good look round,

if you notice anything else that's missing, call us on 101 and quote

the crime number and they'll be able to update the property list.

Right, OK.

It's a lot for Stephen to take in.

It beggars belief to me that they've just taken the really large items

like TVs. how they managed to walk down the street

with a 42-inch TV and a 32-inch TV, I have no idea.

Outside, Pete's attention to detail has uncovered a potentially vital

piece of forensic evidence.

In there is the tool mark of the tool that was used to prise open

the door, and it's scratched the surface of the metal.

I'm going to try, if I can, to cast that.

It's like a fingerprint.

If we get the tool back, the scientist can match up

the striation marks from the edge of the tool with the tool mark.

He takes a detailed cast of the tool mark.

The more forensic evidence that he can collect,

the better the chance of finding a suspect and getting a conviction.

Well, you've got fibres, gloves, tool mark,

implement, and then you've got shoe prints.

You've got three items there before we've even got more than

three feet in the house,

and we've got already three good bits of evidence.

Jill has been a policewoman for over five years

and is still angered by every burglary she attends.

It's one thing that I despise most,

burglars that go in and disrupt the whole family.

I would hate to feel... If I got in and I was burgled,

I would feel really cross,

devastated that people have been through my personal belongings

and in my space, because they've been in the man's bedroom,

they've been in the child's room, they've been throughout the house,

searching through their property and belongings.

I think it would just feel unclean.

I would just be absolutely devastated, so that is why

we're on this unit, cos we want to catch these people.

We want to catch burglars

because I would certainly hate to come home and be burgled.

-All right, thanks very much.

-No worries.

-Call the insurance.

-Yeah, excellent.

-Thank you.

-See you.

-See you later.

We'll join Jill and Andy later,

when there's a breakthrough in that case.

But now we're off to Essex

to meet another crime-fighting duo with a difference.

Cesar is a two-year-old German Shepherd

and is one of 60 dogs currently working for Essex Police.

Cesar's handler is PC Graham Nuth,

and the pair have been working together for a year.

I've been a dog handler since 2009.

I joined the police because I didn't want the routine of going

to the same office every day, doing the same thing.

Police dogs live at home with their handlers

to strengthen the bond between them.

Cesar is a general-purpose police dog, so he does pretty much anything

across the board of what police dogs are able to do -

search, track, bite, recover stuff.

And the way he does that is, we train him on human scent.

So if you're hiding in the garden,

the scent from you is what he will home in on.

I call it magic, basically, the feeling I get

when all his senses have come together

and he's found someone - that's why I take him to work. But it's great.

It's the best feeling in the world.

But there's another side to being a dog handler.

Cesar's my second police dog.

My first police dog, unfortunately, got killed in service.

He got attacked by another dog at a job.

Eddie had contracted a rare disease from the attack.

I had three months of heartache of whether he was going to get better or not.

Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done.

So that's the side of the business that people don't generally see.

Any dog lover will tell you how much they're attached to their dogs,

but to have this one with you all the time, 24 hours a day,

and then obviously when they die it's a big loss

and it's still painful now. But you have to pick yourself up.

I'm going to carry on being a police dog handler,

so I had to get a new dog and start all over again.

Graham and Cesar have now been working together for a year,

and he's not just a police dog. He's a loyal and much-loved pet.

He's a part of my family, he's a part of my life, so...

I'm just lucky that I get to take him to work with me every day.

It's 2am. Graham and Cesar are on a night shift.

A call has just come in, and their help is needed.

Someone has reported that their vehicle has been broken into

in their driveway. Laptop, work's laptop, has been stolen.

There's also been a report of teenagers riding around the area

on bikes.

One bike has been abandoned in an alleyway close to the crime scene.

It's unusual that somebody would dump a bike -

they may still be within the area. We'll put the dog around the bike and see if we can pick up a track.

The bike could belong to one of the thieves,

and Cesar soon picks up a scent.

He's interested in something, yeah.

These people are breaking in to cars,

will go up everyone's driveways trying their car door handles.

That's why he's quite frantic, in and out of people's driveways.

Cesar is hot on the scent.

It looks like the suspects have been here recently.

Within minutes, Cesar leads Graham straight into the path

of two teenagers on bikes.

Stand still! Stand still!

I've got one suspect making off down Woodgrange.

Stand still, mate. Don't do any sudden movements, all right?

Is it just you two? Come over here, mate.

Come and stand next to your mate.

Don't do anything stupid like running off - he'll chase you down.

The reason I've stopped you two is, we've had a report about somebody

breaking into people's cars.

And it was quite distinctive about people being on bikes.

Seconds later, back up arrives.

All right. You're both under arrest at the minute.

Suspicion of theft from a motor vehicle.

You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence...

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

As the other officers deal with the boys, Graham and Cesar

keep tracking the scent, hoping it will lead them to the third suspect,

who must have abandoned the bike.

Ideally, we can recover the laptop or the third person that's outstanding.

Just going to have a quick look at this bike,

see why they've dumped it.

Ah, it's got a flattie.

Punctures.

Cesar's still on the scent, and this time it leads him

to some of the stolen property.

They've obviously taken it, I think, thinking it's a laptop

and they've looked at it and seen it's a set of scales.

Not a lot they can do with those. That's why it's been dumped here.

We'll seize that as evidence.

It'll go back and get forensically examined

and he'll get it back probably tomorrow at some point,

once the Scenes Of Crime people have done what they need to do with it.

Yeah. Would imagine he'd be quite pleased to get that back.

With two suspects apprehended, and some of the stolen property

recovered, it's been a successful night for Graham and Cesar.

Leeds, in Yorkshire, has a high student population.

Statistics show that one in three students in the UK

will be a victim of crime.

Bradley Escorcio moved from London to study politics and economics here

at the prestigious University of Leeds.

After a successful first year, Bradley moved out of halls

and into a flat with some friends.

We managed to find quite a nice place near town,

so it was just a few minutes' walk from uni.

Christmas, 2011.

Bradley was hard at work preparing for next year's deadlines

on his top-of-the-range laptop computer.

He'd saved up for it by working part-time at his local cinema.

There was about two 3,000-word essays that I had for January,

so I'd been in the library for two or three weeks solid,

reading every day, taking some notes. So it was quite a lot of work.

Bradley had planned to make a back-up copy of vital research

over Christmas, but just before the break,

he was in for a nasty surprise.

I got a phone call just saying that my housemate had gone to the flat

to pick up his stuff and he realised that the door had been kicked in.

The burglar had entered the block of flats through the front entrance.

There was no damage to the security door.

It seems another resident had inadvertently buzzed in

this opportunistic thief.

The first thought that went through my head was kind of

the initial panic of, has my stuff been taken?

I knew I hadn't backed up my data.

And I was like, "Oh, please don't have taken my laptop."

The door to Bradley's flat was a low-security internal door.

And the intruder made short work of it.

Bradley rushed home, fearing he'd not only lost his possessions,

but he might have also lost the important research on his laptop.

As I was running on my way back from town, I came in from that direction there.

I walked in, then noticed that my light was on.

That was the first sign that we'd been broken in -

I definitely turned it off when we left.

The whole bottom half of the door was kicked through along here

and there was quite a lot of debris on the floor as well.

After gaining entry to the flat, the intruder had gone straight

for Bradley's bedroom.

I came into my room and the first thing I noticed was that

my laptop, which was down here the night before, wasn't there any more.

The burglar had also stolen a digital camera,

but surprisingly had left the rest of the flat untouched.

The first officer was there within 20 minutes, which was quite good.

And then the forensic officer came five or ten minutes after.

Although it was quite dusty over the surfaces,

they couldn't find anything that was significant.

With no forensic evidence,

there seemed little chance of recovering Bradley's possessions.

But Bradley had an ace up his sleeve.

He'd installed a piece of tracking software onto his laptop

that he'd read about on the internet.

There was a story about a guy in America who had his laptop stolen

and he used it to track down the burglar.

I saw the story and was like, "If it's a free programme,

"it can help you get back stolen goods. I'll add it on."

This was about 18 months before we got broken into.

But it's one of those things that you leave in the background

and don't think about until something happens.

And then when it does, you're pleased that you put it on.

Tracking software uses GPS to pinpoint the location

of missing electrical items like laptops and smartphones.

Once reported missing, the software logs activity on the stolen gadget.

This software has proven invaluable in the hunt for stolen goods.

Anything that's got a tracking element to it is of no value

to the criminal. Whenever you put it, whatever you do to it,

when it comes back online we will find it.

It destroys the stolen goods market, really.

Although Bradley and the police hoped for a positive result

from the tracking software, Bradley had another problem to contend with.

His three weeks of research were gone,

and he'd have to do it all over again.

I was quite depressed at the time, thinking that it would take quite a while.

I thought about having to stay over Christmas to kind of catch up on the work.

But the very next day he received a message from his missing laptop.

It just popped up on my phone saying, "Your laptop has been located."

Not only had the software found his laptop,

it stated it was somewhere on the road where he lived.

I thought it was an old report, saying it was at my house still.

So I kind of ignored it, initially.

Then, about five minutes later, I got an e-mail which said

a new report was in.

So I went onto the website and looked at that and that showed me that,

although it was still on my road, someone else did have my laptop.

Incredibly, the cocky thief was using Bradley's laptop

at that very moment - less than 100 yards away!

Criminals don't travel far to commit crime.

They're a lazy bean, if you like.

Bradley received three reports from the tracking software

in quick succession.

The first report was them trying to delete my account.

The second one was them changing the account to their name.

And the third, they were on LoveFilm trying to rent a movie.

Not only did Bradley know the location of his stolen laptop,

he also had the names of the people using it.

And there was one more thing.

It had even taken a photo of them!

It would appear they'd been caught red-handed.

Bradley immediately called 101,

the non-emergency police number.

POLICEMAN CHUCKLES

A very happy West Yorkshire Police sprung into action.

In these cases, time is of the essence.

Property does move around quite quickly,

so if you have it in a location,

it's a trigger plan in place for us to get out there,

getting to that address and get the property as soon as possible.

The police ran the address through their database and got a hit.

A recently paroled burglar was living there.

Officers were then dispatched to that address,

the property was recovered and the occupants were arrested.

Three days after the burglary, the laptop and camera were back

in Bradley's possession,

thanks to the tracking software that he had installed over a year ago.

On this occasion, Bradley's been smarter than them

and he's put the tracking software on there.

And it's provided us with the tools to be able to get him it back

and get the people arrested for it.

And the icing on the cake for Bradley - he managed to recover

almost all of his research, and made his coursework deadline.

The essay was on security studies,

which was a subject I really enjoyed.

And it was one of the highest marks that I got for that year,

it was a 74, so I was quite pleased.

Nice work, Bradley!

Back in St Albans, it's two weeks since Stephen Strange's home

was robbed. His feelings are still raw.

It felt like somebody had invaded my home

and I have multiple sclerosis.

I need to get a lot of sleep,

otherwise I get fatigued really easily. And I just haven't been able

to do that the last two weeks.

I like to think that my property is secure and safe.

I cleaned up as best I could, but it was tough on that first night.

It's got better since.

But there has been a breakthrough in the case.

Operation Scorpion officers have seized some stolen goods,

and Jill and Andy are going through the list of what has been found.

-The Jubilee coin.

-I can't believe you got the Jubilee coin back.

-Yeah.

Black Nintendo Wii and Toshiba TV with acrylic protector.

They're all items from Stephen's house.

Right, let's find his TVs. I hope they aren't heavy!

The property was recovered during a search on a known burglar's address.

Yay, we're in!

Today is a good day because we're getting to give the man

his tellies and his bits and pieces back.

Coming up to Christmas, he deserves a good present.

The offender was arrested for another matter.

And on searching his house, we found an Aladdin's cave of stolen goods.

We immediately recognised the TV

because it had a screen protector on it.

This is a very good TV.

I know it's good because it's the same as mine!

You can see, a lot of the goods on here were taken from his house.

There's a lot of jewellery, the two TVs, all sorts of stuff that

was stolen and identified to different burglaries in the area.

Often stolen goods are sold on immediately.

This guy happened to be storing it all in his own house.

This is the best bit of the job, to be honest.

It's rare that we get to give people back their stuff,

so this is what it's all about.

You want to get the stuff and give it back to people.

We'll have a bit of fun today.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-How are you? You all right?

-Good, thanks.

We have some things for you.

-Lovely jubbly.

-I'm sure you're very pleased.

-I'll just get the lads to lift in the telly.

-Right.

-All right.

It feels great to get some of my things back.

I'm amazed at the police, I really am.

I think they've done a great job.

-Did you keep the box for the coin?

-No.

-I'm gutted!

-I didn't think I'd get it back.

-No, that's the thing, isn't it?

I just said, "It's a shame, I bet you've binned the box."

-Yeah.

-Is that the coin?

-Yeah, that's it.

-Lovely.

-And the black Wii?

-That's mine, yeah.

-OK.

I'm thinking about writing to the local paper and just saying,

"They get a lot of stick but they've actually done really well,"

so I'm really happy.

-We're pleased to get you some bits back.

-Thank you very much.

Let's hope we can get some others back.

-Get my high scores on my Wii back!

-Yeah!

Took me ages to get them!

-Right, have a nice Christmas anyway.

-Brilliant. Thank you very much.

Take care.

Amongst all the stolen items recovered,

there was one irreplaceable treasure.

This was the Jubilee coin that my mother gave to me

when I was seven years old. So it means quite a bit.

It feels really good to have it back.

It just means the burglars didn't get absolutely everything of mine.

They took a lot of things that meant a lot to me,

but at least I get one thing back.

Special.

I'm absolutely made up for this bloke,

because he's got his stuff back.

It's very rare we get to return property to them,

so being allowed to go to the start of the scene, seeing his house

and him distraught, to then going and finding the property

and being able to give it back to the person, is your bread and butter.

That's how it should be in the police.

By us catching this burglar, it's put his mind at ease

and shows that Hertfordshire is a nice place to live

and the police are out there doing a job that they expect us to do.

So it's really, really satisfying today.

Now for an update on today's stories.

In the case of Bradley Escorcio's stolen laptop,

both suspects were charged.

Courtney Moriarty was given 12 months' conditional discharge

for handling stolen goods.

Steven Morris sent to prison for 15 months for burglary

and handling stolen goods.

I was happy to get it back but also quite happy that someone would

get convicted for stealing my laptop.

In Essex, the laptop stolen from the car was never recovered.

The suspects were released without charge.

And the recovered scales were returned to their rightful owner.

In Hertfordshire, the suspect pleaded guilty to burglary

and is awaiting sentencing.

Since this chap's been caught, we're very, very pleased to say

that burglary is way down.

He's currently in prison and he's currently talking to detectives

about other jobs that he's done and hopefully we'll be able

to return property to other people from other crimes as well.

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

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