Episode 9 Oxford Street Revealed

It's the most famous shopping street in the world,

in the heart of Britain's capital city -

a mile and a half long, with 30 million visitors each year,

with some of the world's most famous shops,

-biggest stars...

-Kate Moss.

-CHEERING

-..and busiest stations.

-Sorry, guys, stand back for me!

What does it take to keep it running 24 hours a day...

Busiest street in the world, so it needs constant attention.

-..seven days a week?

-Clear off!

You're going to be arrested on suspicion of attempted theft.

Are you ready, London?

A street that never sleeps...

This sort of thing wouldn't happen anywhere else.

..Oxford Street.

Coming up, plain-clothes police on patrol

uncover a suspected phone scam.

The high-end food coming to a table near you.

A charity shop's on the hunt for fancy fashion items.

Huh! That's paid off, ain't it?

And last orders, please.

The police licensing team crack down on unruly pubs and clubs.

It's now five to one in the morning, there are people outside drinking,

so we need to see a copy of the licence, please.

Keeping Oxford Street and the surrounding West End of London safe

is a police team dedicated to making sure

the visitor and tourist hot spots are free from trouble.

And one of their most experienced plain-clothes operatives

is Acting Sergeant Darren Bond.

He and his team run regular undercover patrols.

The main thing they're on the lookout for today is pickpocketing.

If they suspect someone, they'll stop and question them.

What they've learnt over the years is they never know what they might find.

So, it's a Friday evening. Everybody's filed out of work.

They're going home for the weekend.

Unfortunately, that means a lot of them are going to take home

their laptops, do a bit of work over the weekend.

That's gold dust for the thieves.

And on their way from Oxford Street to Covent Garden,

Darren gets a call from two of his team.

They've seen a man acting suspiciously

in and around some local pubs.

He won't tell them much, professing to speak little English.

All he has said is he's Afghan, 17 years old

and that he can't remember his date of birth.

Been in the country for 14 years but doesn't speak English.

His date of birth is crucial to identify who he is

and whether he's in the country legitimately.

When did you come England?

-When? Which year?

-You're smiling. You think this is funny, don't you?

No answers from you, definitely cuffs, police station.

If I can get details from you, maybe you walk.

But Darren's communication skills aren't working.

With so many foreign nationals to deal with in London,

the police use a commercial telephone translation service,

which PC Pace puts into practice.

Can you ask this man, does he have a visa?

Even with an interpreter, the man doesn't want to say much.

Tell him, I don't care why he's here, what is his date of birth?

You know your date of birth, don't you?

I think your English is better than you're telling me

and your English is better than my Pashtun.

But we have an interpreter now and you're still being difficult.

So, if you know how old you are, how do you not know your date of birth?

So now I'm making inquiries on the scant details

we've got out of the gentleman

with immigration services, to see if he's known to them.

The team are increasingly convinced the man's evasiveness

is because he shouldn't be in the UK at all.

You're here illegally, aren't you?

Can you ask him, please, what's your date of birth?

TRANSLATOR SPEAKS IN PASHTUN

MAN REPLIES IN PASHTUN

-TRANSLATOR ON PHONE:

-'September 6th, 1998.'

6th September, 1998, his date of birth.

'Can you repeat that, please?'

Did you come here on the back of a lorry?

With the man continuing to be difficult

and his immigration status dubious, they decide to make the arrest.

Can you explain to this man,

you're under arrest for being an illegal immigrant

in this country and you're coming back with us

to the police station for some questions.

And immigration offences aren't his only contravention.

I'm also arresting you for suspicion of possession of a class B drug.

The gentleman has been given ample opportunity

to provide his details

or substantiate if he's legally in the country.

He's not been able to do that.

I'm fairly certain he's here illegally. Good spot by the guys.

Not the offence we're looking for, but ways and means.

They take the man back to the station where Darren books him in.

He'll be later passed on to Immigration Services.

It's more testimony to the team's skills

in spotting suspicious behaviour.

And a few days later, two of the team,

PCs James Drummond and Brad Pace, are out again,

looking for people acting suspiciously,

and they know just what they're looking for.

Not the clothing, not the nationality,

it's rather the out-of-character behaviour.

Bumping into people, walking, following people should stick out.

They're hard to pick out. They are getting incredibly savvy

about their own antisurveillance techniques.

But perhaps not savvy enough.

James spots a couple of men across the street

-and thinks immediately something's not right.

-Where am I looking?

Right-hand side, straight ahead, beyond,

literally walking through the scaffolding now.

One of them is consistently looking into the cafes,

looked into the sandwich bar.

PC Pace suspects the men might be thieves.

They're looking for opportunities,

so bags on the floor,

phones on the tables.

They might be able to go in in ones or twos, distract someone.

That's when an offence is likely to take place,

so we'll just try and watch what happens.

They start to follow.

The suspects have yet to actually make a move

and the longer the officers follow them,

the bigger the risk they'll be spotted.

I saw them there, split off and one was on either side of the road,

trying to increase their chances.

If they split, I'll take blue and you take black.

The suspects are joined by a third man.

Just as James and Brad are debating stopping them,

the suspects talk to another man on the street.

James has a word with the man they spoke to.

Thank you.

If the men are selling phones in this way,

James suspects they'll be stolen ones.

It's enough to warrant a stop and search.

PC Pace catches up with the third man.

I've seen you talking with these people.

Stand up against the wall for me.

Stand up against the wall. Have you got ID, passport? ID? Passport?

-Yes, you do. ID.

-Later, the team search the men.

Stay there, otherwise I'll put you in handcuffs. Stay there.

And what they find surprises even them.

These two have got the same IMEI written on the back.

Oxford Street might have a lot of stores,

but very few of them are charity shops.

In fact, there's only one in the area - the Salvation Army shop.

It's run by manager Natalie.

£80 altogether. Thank you very, very much.

Have a lovely day. Bye.

She's worked here for 16 years

and, over that time, has made a big effort

to make the store meet the demands of the location.

I've tried very hard to build up a special boutique shop

and to build up something that is really quite good now.

Lots of vintage stuff, lots of designer stuff.

Look at that - Louboutin.

This is American Apparel, still got the labels on.

Beautiful party dress, can't go wrong with that. Lovely.

This wonderful, wonderful dress. Hasn't been worn.

It retails at £1,500. £150 we've priced it for.

It's still here. Doesn't want to get married.

But unlike the other stores on the street,

she's reliant on donations and recently,

the upmarket garments she craves have been few and far between.

She aims to make £600 a day.

We have achieved £364.90...

..which is OK but, hmm, not good enough.

However, Natalie's come up with a plan to improve her takings.

She's going to trial a new bag-drop scheme

to encourage the affluent residents around Oxford Street

to donate their unwanted high-class clothing.

And the first day of the scheme is today.

I am so excited.

I am absolutely bursting with joy just to see what happens.

Hopefully, our fortunes will change

because we're going to see what we get.

The success of her plan now rests with collectors Tony and Dale,

who've come all the way from Northampton to help with the trial.

-Natalie.

-Hi, Tony, hi. How are you?

-We spoke on the phone.

Good, good, good. How many bags are you going to put out?

-We've got a target of 500 bags.

-Wow.

-We will collect on Friday.

-On Friday and then we can see what we're going to get from that.

-Yes.

They get to work, dropping off 500 bags

in the surrounding residential areas.

There we go - Oxford Street, eh?

We've walked just over four miles.

This is bag number 500, the last one,

and this is the letterbox that that will be going through,

so let's wish it luck.

It's been two days since the bags were dropped.

This morning, Tony and Dale are back to trawl the streets,

trying to spot their trademark white and red bags.

Big day for us today. We're not sure what we'll pick up.

At first, business is slow.

This is our possible worst nightmare.

We're driving round and we can't really find any bags at the moment.

I'm not sure, I think, down there, there was a bag.

Yeah, there is, there is.

-You're not getting the first bag!

-Yeah.

-No, no.

-Yeah.

First one's mine!

-Ah!

-I got it!

Soon, the bags are coming thick and fast.

There's two more. When you start picking the bags up

and you see the first few, it lifts you.

You start getting excited with it and expecting more bags,

-which we'll get, won't we?

-Yeah.

-There's something heavy in that one.

-It's rubbish.

There's two or three down there. Got that. That's a big one.

What started off as being a little bit slow has more than picked up.

That's great. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated.

Right, that was good.

And with that, Tony and Dale's bag collection is complete.

They head back to the shop.

I'm quite impressed with how generous it is around here.

It's been quite surprising.

-Tony, Dale, fantastic!

-Bags, bags.

-Woohoo!

Time to see what treasure they've managed to unearth.

Nice coat there. That is a nice one.

-Oh, my gosh - Burberrys! How cool is that?

-And that was the first bag.

Oh, it was the first one? Oh!

-Exciting!

-Ben Sherman.

-Ben Sherman, J Crew...

-Huh, that's paid off, ain't it?

-Yeah. Did we do well?

You did very well. It's like Christmas time.

You open the bag and think, "Oh, what am I going to get?"

Wow, that's brill. Hugo Boss. Really good, expensive ties.

Another Burberry - woohoo! Got to get it out as soon as possible.

I'll get £75 for that. Yeah, I will. Thank you very, very much.

For Natalie, her idea for the trial has paid off handsomely.

'Today has been an amazing day. The only downside,'

the wedding dress is still here, but it's off the wall

and, hopefully, we can get her out of the door.

And since we filmed, the bag scheme was extended.

-Takings at the store have nearly trebled.

-Home, James!

That dress, however, is still waiting to be sold.

PC Drummond and PC Pace have stopped three men,

who they spotted acting suspiciously.

As the officers followed the suspects, they saw one of them

offering to sell a phone to a stranger on the street.

-Thank you.

-James's first thought

is that they might be trying to sell stolen phones.

Stay there, otherwise I'll put you in handcuffs. Stay there!

The men have some explaining to do.

The men are Romanian and say they don't speak much English.

We're going to get a translator on the phone so we can talk properly.

-Listen. Listen.

-Hello?

Between them, the men have a series of high-end phones.

Now confident that something isn't right, PC Pace calls in backup.

We've stopped three guys and there's about five phones at the moment.

If you can get here pretty sharpish, that'd be awesome.

We have a great deal of high-value phones -

Samsung S5's, an iPhone, possible 5.

Until we can determine whether they're stolen or not,

we have to treat it as suspicious.

PC Drummond gets back in touch with the telephone translator service.

The gentleman has, through LanguageLine, informed us

that the phones are all his, he's got the chargers for them

and he's trying to generate money to get his way back to his own country.

It sounds a plausible explanation but James isn't convinced.

If you can explain to him that we find it suspicious

that he would try to sell to somebody

just walking down the street,

so we are searching him, his friends and the phones

to find out whether he has any stolen property

or the phones are stolen. Can you explain that for me?

The backup has arrived.

The men are searched and chargers that match the phones are discovered.

As they investigate further, things get murkier.

-These two have got the same IMEI written on the back.

-Really?

The IMEI number for the phone should be like a numberplate for a car,

so should be different for every single phone.

However, on getting into the phone, we've then conducted the IMEI check

and they're all different from what they say on the back of the phone,

which leads us to believe that they are clone phones.

It's not possible for legitimately manufactured phones

to share IMEI numbers and the numbers on the case

ought to match the ones that come up on screen, but they don't.

THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE TONGUE

So, you paying £80 for it or £70 for it,

there's got to be something fishy.

I've dealt with these before and this is a fake phone.

They're not real phones.

They work the same as phones, the cameraphone works,

but it's a fake phone.

My colleague saw you trying to sell it to people.

-No.

-James and Brad think they might have uncovered a hi-tech scam.

The phones are cloned fakes and the officers think

they've been presented as the genuine article and offered for cash.

You're all under arrest. You're going to a local police station

for possession of articles used to commit fraud, all right?

-Original.

-No. You know! Look at your face. You know.

-Original.

Yeah, of course. They won't even work. I can tell by this button.

Look at that button and look at that button.

-Is iPhone cinco, no?

-No.

-Si. Original.

While they wait for transport to the police station,

James reflects on a surprising outcome.

It wasn't, necessarily, what we were looking for.

It was just a gut instinct thing, I have to admit.

The men are all put in the back of the police van

and taken to the station, where they're booked in.

It was a very good spot by James.

He spotted the two individuals a long way off

and we've seen the two males on opposite sides of the street,

ticking all the right boxes. It's the behaviour which stands out.

Turns out they had three Samsung Galaxys

and one iPhone 6, all of which were fake.

Later, the ORB team are back on patrol,

on the trail, this time, of unruly pubs and clubs.

I think there's sufficient here for a section 19,

just to bring it up to speed.

Within 1km of Oxford Street,

there's estimated to be up to 3,000 restaurants.

The trade is fuelled by the millions of visitors the street generates.

It's a competitive market.

27% of independent restaurants close within a year of opening

and 62% within four years.

Let's go!

But just what does it take for the luxury restaurants

in the Oxford Street area to ensure they maintain a competitive edge?

According to butcher Peter Allen,

much of it is down to the quality of the produce they use.

This is the centre of London

and it attracts the richest people in the world

and it's absolutely essential that they've got the best product

because it's a fiercely competitive market.

Peter supplies many of the leading Michelin-starred chefs in the area

and today, he's come to try and sell one of his regular clients

some of the most valuable meat in the world - Wagyu beef.

COWS MOO

Wagyu is a Japanese breed of cow revered for its flavour.

It costs around twice the price of other high-end meats. Why?

Well, the answer lies 100 miles away at Earl Stonham Farm in Suffolk.

Hello, my darlings. Off you go.

Andrew Deacon has one of the few herds of Wagyu cattle in the UK.

The point about Wagyu is that they mature much more slowly

than average cattle.

There was a natural propensity of the Wagyu

to store fat in its muscle

and the taste in beef is very much in the fat

and this produces this wonderful taste when it is cooked.

To make sure they reach the perfect balance of fat,

their feed is carefully monitored.

We have a specialist nutritionist who formulates the food recipes.

We feed them a very rich energy diet

just to make sure they're full of energy

and they're producing the quality

and the taste that we want in that end product in the restaurants.

The recipe's... It's not highly guarded,

but it's one that we don't want to let out.

The special quality of the meat becomes apparent

once on the butcher's table.

So this is marbling. That's the flavour.

That's what everyone loves. Everyone's mad for the marbling.

It's just a little thin piece of fat

but it goes all the way through the meat

and gives it the juice, the flavour.

Once cut up, the meat's ready for Peter to take to Oxford Street.

Later, the bespoke Japanese-style beef is in the hands of the chef.

Let's taste.

We'll see if he likes it enough to put it on his menu.

It's 9pm.

At Oxford Circus, Sergeant Richard Bunch is out on patrol

with a plains-clothes colleague.

But, unlike most police working Oxford Street,

they aren't out hunting criminals.

They're officers with Westminster Police's Licensing Team

and tonight, they're looking to ensure the pubs and clubs

entertaining people in the area are sticking to the rules.

It's crucial work,

ensuring any trouble or antisocial behaviour is kept to a minimum.

What we're going to do is see how they run their security,

see how their CCTV is operated

and see what prevention they're undertaking themselves.

Each venue has different terms to its licence,

which may address issues from capacity and opening hours

to the provision of CCTV and noise levels.

First up, they head into a bar which has recently been refurbished.

-Are you the DPS now?

-Yeah.

-Excellent.

-Can we just go in and check your licence and stuff?

-Yeah.

It's a condition of their licence to have functioning CCTV

and Richard wants to check the refurbishment hasn't affected

-the areas the cameras cover.

-Take camera one, for instance.

You've got a great shot of the light and nothing else.

Yeah, it's been recently moved.

-This one here, see where the lights are reflecting from outside?

-Yeah.

What we're going to see is absolutely nothing.

I think there's sufficient here for a section 19,

just to bring it up to speed.

A section 19 can end in a bar's closure,

although the bar will have a period of time to put things right first.

Richard is being thorough for a reason.

If the police had relied on these cameras,

-they'd have been let down.

-But we don't have to close?

-No, no, no.

It's a notice giving you notice to try and bring your CCTV up-to-date.

The officers will return in a couple of weeks to make sure

the upgrade is carried out.

The team move on. One of the biggest complaints

from businesses and residents on the street

is noise and broken glass caused by drinking outside.

And at a pub down the road,

they're not happy about customers spilling onto the street.

The manager promises he's sticking to the terms of the licence.

At 12 o'clock, they all come in.

Do they? We just want to identify a couple of bits.

The team give him a warning and move on

but decide they'll come back and recheck a bit later.

As the night draws in,

they turn their attention to the area's nightclubs.

They might be on the guest list for every club,

but things have definitely moved on since their own glory days.

I don't get it, personally, really don't get it.

The music's definitely changed and it's definitely louder.

It's a different world, a different world.

Tonight, they'll have to put up with the noise long enough

to make sure the clubbers are safe

and the surrounding area isn't too badly affected.

The Bonbonniere Club is one of a number locally

that can no longer legally serve drinks in glassware.

A review of the club's operations leaves Richard happy.

The officers have visited a dozen premises over the evening.

They make their way back to the station

via the pub they warned earlier about drinking outside,

but at nearly 1am, when they get there,

people are still drinking on the street from glasses.

It needs dealing with now. He assured us at midnight

that he would stop everyone drinking outside.

They were due to go inside. It's now five to one in the morning

and they're clearly still drinking outside.

The manager isn't happy with their attention.

He's just walked out and I've just walked in.

It's now five to one in the morning,

there's still people outside drinking.

So we need to see a copy of the licence, please.

The manager says the boss has the licence

and he's upstairs asleep because he's taking part

in the London to Brighton bike ride in the morning.

They send the manager upstairs anyway to wake him.

-Hello, my friend, sorry.

-Sorry.

-That's all right.

They show him the part of his licence which states that after midnight,

no-one should be allowed to take their drinks outside with them.

He, too, is given a section 19 notice,

with a strict warning that if it happens again,

there could be some serious sanctions taken against him.

-Good luck tomorrow.

-Cheers.

Just a couple of minor infractions tonight

shows how the area has improved in recent years.

All in all, the work we're continually doing

is clearly having a positive impact on all the licensed premises

up in the Oxford Street area

and we're continually making the area safe

for people to visit and enjoy their nights out.

And with that, Richard decides the party's over

and calls time on his patrol.

Since we filmed,

the pub we saw earlier has made the alterations to its CCTV.

In the end, no further action was taken against the three men

accused of selling fake phones.

The Afghan man, suspected of being in the country illegally,

was bailed to return to court the next day but failed to appear.

He is now wanted by the police.

Midlands butcher Peter Allen is at an upmarket restaurant

near Oxford Street, looking to make a sale for his high-priced Wagyu beef.

Problem is, it's expensive - around twice the price of his usual beef.

Now, I happen to think that this could be the cut for you.

For chef Douglas to take it, he's got to be sure

it's special enough for people to want to pay a high price for it.

What we should actually do is to cook a picanha steak...

-A picanha steak.

-..taste it.

-Definitely.

Here we go.

I think now is the moment of truth.

Let's taste.

Wow, definitely, people will pay for this steak and will come back.

Thank you. I'm a happy boy now.

I want to taste it again because it's very, very good.

It's nice!

Peter...

-..we have a deal.

-Oh, good. Thank you.

Bye. We've made the sale.

I won't have to walk to work next week.

And just a few days later, for £55, the rump Wagyu steak ends up

on a group of Oxford Street shoppers' plates.