Episode 8 Robbed, Raided, Reunited

Between now and the end of this programme, 40 homes will be burgled.

Coming up...

It makes you sick to your stomach

when you see everything that they've done.

We're with the police as they hunt down burglars.

We have high-powered vehicles,

we're trained in pursuits,

the adrenaline starts pumping,

we've got to get behind that car.

And we see how powerful it is

when stolen goods get returned to their rightful owners.

This made me realise that, although there are bad people,

there's a lot more good people.

It's 12.30 in Hertfordshire and a 999 call is coming in

from a concerned local resident.

Police are dispatched immediately

to try and catch the burglars red-handed.

PC Zoe Davis, a nine-year veteran of the armed response unit,

was on the case and is taking us back through the events of that day.

So I'm heading up the A41 towards Berkhamsted.

And we've heard that there are intruders at an address.

As the burglars are ransacking the home

and stealing the family valuables,

the police are closing in.

We are aware that this information is coming from an informant

who were watching these two burglars going to this address.

She's on the phone, we're getting up-to-date information

that's from the horse's mouth.

We know that these people shouldn't be there

and that we need to capture them,

so we may try and, you know, try and get their location

as quick as we can.

I joined the police force in order to catch criminals,

in order to stop people breaking the law.

Any police officer likes their job

because they bring people to justice.

They've got into a grey Golf

and then it's made off at speed,

mounting the kerb and it's caused damage to the vehicle.

12.37 and the burglars are on the run.

The police helicopter is dispatched

to help teams on the ground track down the getaway car,

stolen from a burglary in Essex.

We now hear that the vehicle has been spotted

on the high street, at Berkhamsted.

As the suspects' car heads down the high street,

two marked police cars are 15 seconds behind.

And Zoe was also closing in.

Looking in the distance,

I see a Golf, grey in colour, and coming the opposite direction

and we see that vehicle go past very quickly.

Being in the armed response vehicle,

we have high-powered vehicles, we're trained in pursuits,

so, you know, the adrenaline starts pumping

and we've got to get behind that car.

Thanks to the brave actions of the caller,

the police are now in hot pursuit.

And within 20 minutes of the call coming in,

they catch up with the stolen car.

It had been ditched on a slip road of the M25,

but the three men had gone.

The suspects were now trying to escape on foot,

running across a field next to the slip road.

A lorry driver stopped us, waved us down to say there were three men

that have just run into the glazing company, down on Nook Lane.

They'd run into a warehouse

and were trying to blend in with the workers.

They'd even tried to call a taxi to come and pick them up.

But they weren't fooling anyone.

With eight police cars and the helicopter surrounding the building,

the three men were swiftly arrested.

Bu the time that I got full control of this gentleman, he was cuffed.

Obviously, the helicopter was over our heads.

His phone was ringing, so I just took it off him,

because I'm not having him...you know, it's in his pocket.

People, when they're detained, under arrest,

you can't have them making conversations on telephones,

regardless of what they're telling you who it is.

Also, you're mindful that they're going to have pockets full of jewellery

and there are bits and pieces that can be stashed away in back pockets, little pockets.

Within half and hour, literally, of that call coming in,

we've got three in custody for it, and it's a real team effort.

You get back in the car after a job like that

and you're like, "That job is a good one."

That is absolutely spectacular, back to the nick for tea and medals.

I love it, it's brilliant.

The average insurance claim for a burglary is around £1,400.

But, as anyone who's been burgled will know,

it's the sentimental value of the lost treasures that hurt the most.

Some things just can't be replaced.

Maltby, in Yorkshire.

PC's Mick Fletcher and Christine Nicholls

are responding to a burglary.

The Bartholomew family had returned home to find

they'd not only been burgled,

but the thieves had also stolen their car

to use as a getaway vehicle.

This is what we call a two-in-one burglary, Hanoi style.

where they specifically break into an address to steal a vehicle.

It's usually high-performance vehicles, expensive vehicles.

For the limited information we've got at this moment in time,

we know that a TV is gone and probably some computer software - laptops and such.

Christine and Mick have known each other for ten years.

Christine joined the police in 1996

because she wanted a stable and fulfilling job

to provide for her two children.

-Hi, Mr Bartholomew!

-Yeah.

-Police, hello there.

I spoke to you earlier on the telephone, it was me.

The house has been ransacked from top to bottom.

The thieves have stolen James' brand new car

and a large amount of expensive electrical items.

They've broken through the back door and they've took tellies,

computers, camera...

everything, basically.

What they've done is use some sort of a tool,

hammer or...something to force their way in here.

It's possible that they've reached in, unlocked the door

to allow the entry there.

It's been in this bottom corner,

it's because the glass has fragmented away from the point there.

It was James' wife Janet who discovered they'd been burgled.

I came home and noticed the car seat was on the drive,

and it stuck out because of the snow.

I realised the car had gone missing and instinct made me come in the house

and noticed the dogs were running around.

And I knew instantly when I walked past - the television had gone,

the computer had gone, there was glass all over.

The dogs are safe and well,

but the stolen computer contained treasured family photos.

All our little girl's photographs from birth to now, every holiday,

every moment, birthday, Christmas, videos...

Everything, it's all, all gone and...

Yeah, it's...heartbreaking.

Thankfully, their daughter Lily, who's now five,

is staying with her grandparents and won't see the mess at home.

Whilst Christine takes a statement from Janet,

James takes stock of what's been stolen.

There was obviously a television on there that's been taken,

there was a PlayStation 3 as well that's been stolen.

The fact they've been round the house is upsetting, it's worrying,

you know, they've got the keys now to our house.

We're not quite sure exactly what...you know,

if they're going to come back.

It makes you feel sick that somebody's actually been in your house,

spent time sort of running around, looking at everything,

taking what they want.

The main issue that we've got is that all our photos have been taken.

When I last checked, there was about 8,500 photos on the computer.

I had the originals all still in the camera,

but, sadly, they've found the camera as well.

Five years of...of photos have gone.

It's awful. I mean, I know there's a lot worse things that happen in life,

but...it's just that initial shock,

you don't expect to walk through your door

and someone else has been in your house and took your items.

You think you know how you'll feel when things like that happen,

-but when you're actually faced with it...

-It's completely different.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

The thieves had stolen the car using a set of keys

they'd found by the front door.

Most people, as soon as they come through the door,

will put the keys in somewhere.

There's easy access. Sometimes, they take the keys to bed with them.

But the majority of us will just hang them up in a common place.

Sometimes, on a rack that says "keys".

We don't make it hard for them, but you just never think it's going to happen to you.

It's estimated that 70% of cars stolen are taken using the key,

and at least one in five of these cases involve a burglary.

So police advise to keep keys hidden away,

to make sure it's as hard as possible for thieves to find them.

As a victim of burglary himself,

Mick knows first-hand how Janet and James must be feeling.

It's easy to say, "Don't let it affect you."

-It will affect you.

-Yeah.

And you will think for some time when you lock the door,

"Am I going to get burgled?"

But, you know, you can't do any more than you did.

You lock up, they've seen the car.

They've seen an opportunity and targeted it for the car.

-Yeah.

-So...

As the shock of the burglary begins to hit home,

James heads to his bedroom

to see what else the burglars might have stolen.

The room has been completely ransacked,

every single drawer has been pulled out in search of valuables.

You can see they've emptied...the jewellery boxes,

stripped everything out...

Until we can start to clear up,

it's hard to tell exactly what they've taken.

But they've taken all the jewels over there,

some of our daughter's clothing.

And they've been through all the wardrobes as well.

If they'd just been in and took the car keys, it's slightly different, they've done that,

but they've actually spent time, they've been through the entire house.

It's such a strange concept to us to actually go in,

rob somebody's house, you can't even imagine.

But it makes you sick to your stomach when you come through

and you see everything that they've done.

And if school would have been closed today, like most of the schools in the area,

then Lily and Janet would have actually been here.

You don't want to think about what could have actually happened, potentially.

Who or why would someone do that?

When you've got car keys and you've got other items,

why would you want to go through drawers?

And they've even opened my little girl's drawer

and took her clothes out

and the thought of them touching her clothes...

I find that more upsetting than them sort of going through my things as well.

Meanwhile, Scenes of Crime Officer Angela Wallace has arrived

and she may have some good news for the family.

I found some marks on the bottom of the TV.

For some reason, the thieves have left one of the televisions.

I've spoken to the complainants

and they say that the TV's not been handled for quite a while,

it stays on the stand and it isn't moved.

And the marks here, you can see those marks there,

they're fingertips coming round,

possibly in a position where the TV's being picked up.

So they are the ones I'm going to lift off.

We suspect that it could be anything up to four people that's done this.

I think it's just now doing some local door-to-door enquiries,

speaking to the neighbours, seeing what they've seen

and relying heavily on our forensic evidence.

These fingerprints are the only forensic evidence,

but they could be just what the team needs to identify a suspect.

The quality is there.

What we do is we take the fingerprints of everybody

that lives in the house, that could have possible touched the TV,

make sure it's not theirs first to eliminate them,

and then, we search these on the database.

But that's not the only good news,

the burglars have also left behind something very dear to the family.

This is Clyde, he was actually here at the time.

Um... Ironically, this breed was done for guard dogs,

for the Tibetan monks,

but, obviously, not enough to scare them away.

Cos they'll just roll over and have a tickle,

if they had time to do that. Yeah.

With Mick and Christine's investigations complete,

James and Janet can begin putting their lives back together,

sadly, without their treasured family photos.

I just think you've took five years worth of memories away from us

and I hope you're happy... And I hope, I hope they get payback,

I hope that one day when they've got children

and maybe their outlook changes a little bit

and they've got photographs,

they have someone come and take their photographs

and know how we feel today.

When it sinks in, I think we'll both sort of be...

I don't know... I'll be quite down. At the minute, I'm a bit...

-You're still in shock.

-I'm still in shock,

I think I'll probably feel quite down about everything

and the fact that someone's been in our bedroom

and we've got to go back and sleep in that room and...

It's going to be awkward tonight.

-We'll not sleep easy tonight, definitely.

-No.

Back at the station,

Mick and Christine have a long night ahead of them.

Between them, the pair have over 33 years of experience,

but they still feel for every victim.

It is difficult sometimes not to become affected

and get wrapped up in it all.

You have to try your best to remain as professional as possible

and show the empathy they deserve.

I don't even think they realise the upset they cause

and it is nice to arrest these people and get them into court.

And, you know, and, obviously, get them sent to prison,

it gives you a great deal of job satisfaction.

A car is stolen or broken into every two minutes.

It's something South Yorkshire's Crime Prevention Officer

Tracy Rokahr wants us all to guard against.

It could be any time of the day

that they could have look at a particular vehicle.

It could be anywhere, it could be on the street,

it could be in a car park...

Any opportunity at all, a thief will try and take something.

It only takes an opportunity for a thief to break in

and take their items.

And people don't realise the risks they're putting themselves in

by just leaving items in the car on view.

It's estimated that over a quarter of a million sat navs are stolen every year.

That's a lot of smashed windows.

A bit of advice is don't leave any valuables on display,

don't leave things in the glove compartment,

on the dashboard and, also as well,

if you have satellite navigation systems,

don't leave the suction on the windscreen

and ensure that you take it off and remove the mark on the windscreen.

Thieves can break into a car in a matter of seconds.

This footage shows just how easy it is

to get their hands on our precious possessions.

It's getting into a routine of, when you're leaving your vehicle,

to actually take everything with you, even if it's just for seconds.

CAR KEY BEEPS

After the successful police chase in Hertfordshire,

the three suspects were in custody and DS Kerry Bull and the team

could start building the case against them.

Any investigation is like a jigsaw puzzle

and the more pieces of that jigsaw puzzle we've got,

the clearer the picture is for the jury that subsequently hear the case.

But the suspects hadn't made it easy for Kerry and the team.

Since making off from the scene and being arrested,

they'd discarded all the expensive items

that they'd stolen during these events.

Even though they'd tried to cover their tracks,

the case against them was growing.

These guys are searched and in, right in the bottom of one of their pockets,

we recovered a gold-coloured chain, in fact, plastic,

which has come out of a Christmas cracker, funnily enough.

And a silver ring with a cross shape

cut into it and a diamond-coloured stone.

Now, those two items on their own, you would think nothing of them,

because our victim was subsequently able to identify them,

we knew that they came from the burglary earlier that day.

But these two pieces of jewellery weren't the only bits of evidence Kerry had.

We obviously had a member of the public who phoned us up,

so we know what time the offence takes place.

We had the stolen vehicle that was used in that crime,

we know it was the vehicle used in crime, because parts that were knocked off of it as it made off,

we were able to retrieve those parts, take them to the recovered vehicle

and almost do a mechanical fit to show it's the same vehicle.

So when you present facts like that, together with the fact

that one of these guys is on the run from prison...

Very, very pleasing.

That's what makes our job worthwhile and satisfying,

it's to be able to phone those victims up and say,

"We've got the right people, they've now been convicted

"and they won't be bothering you again."

So now, Kerry has the enjoyable job of returning the jewellery,

including the trinket from the Christmas cracker,

to the victims of the burglary, Janet and Hugh.

OK, so a couple of items...

-As you know, you'd had an update and these guys are not been sent to prison.

-Yes.

Which is, which is fantastic.

But the couple of items, as you know, that we caught them on,

I've got to return to you today.

One of those is a silver ring

and the other one, I think, came from a Christmas cracker?

-Yes.

-Yeah, is that right?

-It gives me great pleasure returning that to you.

-Thank you very much.

I think it's you silver ring, quite unusual.

It's got a little cross on.

And the second item...

-This is the most valuable.

-The most valuable, of course.

I put that away in case the grandchildren wanted to dress up.

That's actually plastic, isn't it?

They probably thought it was a valuable gold bracelet.

I think I'm going to give the ring to my niece when I next see her

because there's a huge story behind it.

She never got it when she was 21.

So now I shall give her that when I see her.

What I will say with the guys that burgled your home,

they've never ever on their previous convictions gone back to the same house again. OK?

-So you can take some comfort from that.

-The whole thing is extremely...

It makes you very uncomfortable about leaving the house at any time.

One thing I would say, in Herts, I know you've been a victim of burglary,

but it's one of the safest counties in England and Wales to live in.

Crime is definitely on the decrease. It's about us targeting

the right people and putting them in prison for as long as we can.

Thanks very much for returning the stolen stuff

-and thank you for catching them.

-Fantastic. My pleasure.

-Take care.

-Thanks very much.

-Nice to meet you.

For Kerry, learning the stories behind recovered possessions

like Janet's ring makes his job even more worthwhile.

I didn't know until today that the ring we returned

was for her niece's 21st birthday.

Now she'll be able to pass that on to her niece together with the story

as to how we got it back. It will make it even more sentimental

so it's good for us.

No, I think the police have actually been great.

I think catching them,

the chase must have been exciting for them, but they caught them,

they've got sufficient evidence, they've gone to prison.

Or at least two of them have, which is absolutely fantastic.

And then they've kept us informed throughout with what's going on.

They've been excellent.

Earlier we saw the devastating effect that burglary can have on victims.

Burglars ransacked the Bartholomews' home,

stealing almost £40,000 worth of their belongings

including their new car.

They'd even stolen their computer

containing five-years' worth of family photos.

All our little girl's photographs from birth. Everything has all gone.

It's heartbreaking.

But there has been a major breakthrough in the case.

DS John Dimberline has received a crucial piece of evidence

from an eyewitness living on the other side of Sheffield.

What you can see there is literally the snow scene

and in the background you can see the vehicle.

It's James' car.

This photo was taken on the day of the burglary

by a witness who saw something suspicious and reported it to the police.

She describes four males at the scene, driving the car erratically

which has alerted her to the vehicle.

They've parked up and as they exit, what she's done is use a mobile phone

to actually take pictures of the offenders in the vehicle,

which is probably about as good as it gets.

I'm hoping that once we identify them,

we'll be able to put them in an ID parade and marry that up

with the evidence we've got from the eyewitness at the scene.

After receiving this crucial evidence,

James' car has been successfully recovered

and the team are one step closer to tracking down the burglars.

Now, John is on his way to meet the family

and reunite them with their car

and hopefully, some of their other stolen possessions.

When you've got something personal like photos that can't be replaced,

I think they're going back five years,

then if you can get something back like that,

it just makes it a little bit better, that's all.

Well, hopefully, this is where the car's been recovered to.

As far as we're aware, there are some items still left

in the car, which hopefully contains the computer

that's got all the important stuff on that we wanted back.

We're not quite sure what state the car's in

or what's actually in there.

Hi. John Dimberline, sergeant from Burglary Unit. Hello.

-Hi. I'm James.

-Do you want to come straight through? We've got the BMW waiting

-so we'll see of hopefully some of your property's inside.

-Lovely.

-Is this the one?

-It is, yes.

Yeah.

-Quite a lot of property on the back, isn't there?

-Yeah.

-Your pram's there.

I can see my camera.

And that looks like the computer.

Yeah. Looks like everything's there, doesn't it?

Amazingly, the thieves have left some of Janet and James' stolen property in the car.

And the all-important computer?

That's in there too.

All the photographs are on the computer.

We know even if the computer's damaged,

I'm sure we can retrieve them from the hard drive,

so we know we've got our photographs back. It's great.

They forgot to take the mouse as well so we've still got a mouse!

So we can get onto that and have a look.

I'm just glad we've got a happy outcome. Some people don't, do they?

That one lady just making that one phone call

has made me and James really happy.

So, yeah, we don't have to tell our little girl as well

where all the photographs are any more. Yeah. Amazing.

I don't even know what's in the boot yet,

but as long as we've got that computer back,

we've got our photographs back.

Even though the burglary was a very distressing time for Janet,

there has been a positive outcome in more ways than one.

Everyone's just been so, so lovely.

It's made me realise that although there are bad people,

there's a lot more good people.

That's been really nice to realise that

because I think sometimes you forget that, how many good people there are.

I'll change the way I am as a person, I think,

because of what's happened to us. It's been quite life changing.

We've got the main thing that we wanted, which is obviously

the computer. Photos and videos, every Christmas,

every birthday for the last five years is on there,

so, yeah, we're over the moon at that.

-Thank you very much.

-All right, buddy?

-Cheers. Thank you.

It's just time for an update on today's stories.

In the burglary and police chase in Hertfordshire,

all three suspects pleaded guilty to burglary.

Patrick Murphy got a ten-month suspended sentence,

Patrick Reynolds was sent to prison for 16 months

and Thomas Reynolds was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison

for the burglary and four months for escaping from prison.

In Yorkshire, Niall Johnston, pleaded guilty to the Bartholomews' burglary and car theft.

He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.

The police are still trying to identify the other suspects

seen in the eyewitness photograph.

But this photo is a great example of how WE can help the police

in the fight against crime.

If you're there and it looks suspicious and you're not sure,

then that's sometimes enough.

If you can, just get a photo.

Then if anything does transpire, like this,

you've actually got grade A evidence for us so it's more than worth doing.

And the Bartholomew family recovered all of their missing photographs.

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

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