06/01/2014 Inside Out West Midlands

Tonight, I am on the trail of the criminal gangs using the hole in the

wall to put a hole in your pocket. . Always been a hot spot. I am Mary

Rhodes. And this is Inside Out. Almost eight million of us use a

cashpoint every day. That is three billion withdrawals a year. Who is

watching? Cashpoint crime is on the rise. Sometimes from under our

noses. Toni Nicholls knows all about that T

I am meeting her at the supermarket in Wellington, where she became a

cashpoint victim. Talk me through what happened when you came to use

this cashpoint. I went to the middle one. Put my card in. Put in details,

as normal. Then I waited. It went, "Please contact your service

provider." It said, window shutting down. I was like, oh, that is

strange. Obviously it was like it had eaten my card. The card had been

trapped by thieves who watched her put in her PIN. It is known as

shoulder surfing. They took her card and emptied her account of ?700.

I was really upset and crying, thinking, oh, God, I have lost all

this money, what will I do now? Until then didn't have any

suspicions. Thought it had been eaten up. The thieves were using

basic tactics. Other cashpoint thieves are more sophisticated. This

CCTV shows two of them in action. The false front they are fitting to

this cashpoint contains a skimming device which reads the magnetic

strip. The second part contains a camera to record the PIN. They were

caught and jailed. Across the country, cashpoint skimming has

tripled in the last year alone. Who is behind it?

I am hoping to flush them out by posing as someone who wants to join

in, buying the equipment to fleez people myself. Will anyone bite? A

few e`mails and research gets me going. Surely, kit not be this easy.

First up is a man in America. He says $1,000 will sort me out with

the kit. He even sends me a picture to prove it. Will he meet us? Well

he has responded to our request. He says, "I have a lost to `` lot to

lose by meeting a complete stranger and discuss skimming." Finding a

supplier might be harder. We can make up to ?15,000 a month ` you can

see why people are tempted. Other skimmers are talking to me too. They

don't want to sell me the equipment, but they want to sell me the bank

details they have collected. The man I am talking to is in Vietnam. He

wants to sell me cash card, made from selling other people's bank

data. Can you confirm with these cards you would also send PIN

numbers, so we can use them in an ATM? Yes. I know you have spoken to

Jonathan ` he's not available. Any way, he's ended the call. I don't

know whether he has rumbled me. He's texted through. We will see what it

has said. I think it is interesting. It says, after your payment

completed I would send all five dump cards to you. And then he says,

$150. He wants more money. He finishes by saying, need to run this

deal. So, he's obviously quite keen. So, we have already found people

with equipment for sale. Now someone who wants to sell on the data. What

do the police think? Toni says when her card got stolen, they were not

interested. They said that because it was fraud, that they don't deal

with fraud that we had to go to the bank. That is when we went to the

bank the next day. How has this experience left you feeling?

Worried. Nervous, not wanting to use the cashpoints again really. I go in

to the banks, use the cashpoints there. Don't use them anywhere else.

It scares you. So, I have come to see West Mercia Police. The force

Toni says didn't want to help her. She reported it to you. The police

said, we don't want to know ` it is fraud, it's the bank's

responsibility. Well, woi would be concerned about the `` of the

comment along the lines of we don't want to know. It is a crime. We

would investigate a crime. There are lines of inquiry which can be done.

We have possibly CCTV there. Inquiries in the shops. If people

see something going on at a cash machine, we need to get there

quickly. I am back on the trail of the

criminal gangs who want to help me rip off cashpoints. We found a man

in America who will not show us his face. With persuasion and wearing

gloves he will give me a demo. He's already sent kit to the Midlands. I

sent one to Birmingham. Have not been able to talk to them for two

days because I am sure they are on the road using it right now. He's

not short on tips for using it. You don't have to leave Birmingham. I am

saying, move around. The UK is very good right now. The UK has always

been a good hot spot because you guys deal with pounds. That is why

the Russians and the Bulgarians all try and go out there, because the

money there is extremely good. He is clearly not trying to hide the

fact he's flogging this stuff. He's sold some of this kit to Birmingham.

And also that it is a really lucrative market. So, he believes

there's a lot of money to be made. Toni's bank refunded the ?700 she

lost due to theft. What will she think of the man we have been

talking to. I am meeting her again to show her the footage outside the

other shop thieves used her card in. What do you think of that? I don't

know what to say, really. Just like, there you go ` this is

the equipment, you do it. Don't think about the people they are

doing it to, do they? So long as they can get money. So are you

shocked? Yeah. We know that we should be protecting

our PIN every time we use a cash machine. That is pretty basic. We

found a website that is selling equipment which is far more

sophisticated and it makes that advice pretty much ones sleet. What

has been done about it? I have come to London to meet the team set up to

fight cash machine fraud. I want to show them what we found, including

this website. It only sells equipment to cashpoint

buying and tells me it has developed a much better way of doing it. One

of the clear things is the cameras that pick up the PIN numbers are old

hat now. They have moved on to devices which sit on top of the PIN

pad. In other words, protecting your PIN is no longer enough.

First of all there is a big effort among the police and banks to work

internationally through a number of big agreements across the world to

identify the people behind these sites and close them down. It seems

extraordinary that there's a website like that that exists that is so

blatant about what it is selling. It is even and I find this

extraordinary, a testimonial of a satisfied customer, showing the

thousands and thousands of urs that can be made `` euros that can be

made. Although these websites do exist, the overall picture on card

fraud offers reassurance to your viewers. We have seen a 29%

reduction in card fraud since 2008. Card fraud may be down. Cashpoint

fraud has tripled in the UK in the last year alone. Something our man

in America is aware of. That is why the Russians and the Bulgarian

Bulgarians go out there. Money there is extremely good. There we go ` he

is clearly saying that the UK is a hot spot. The money is really good.

It must be like nailing jelly to a wall trying to catch these guys. It

is true to say this is an area where there are fraud increases. We are

doing all we can to reverse that trend. You are right, the website

will add it to the list of cases we take up on behalf of people and get

to the people behind it. And guess what ` we'll be checking and Toni is

taking action too. The only cashpoint I use is in town, in the

actual bank itself. Most of the time I go into the bank and get money out

or go to the cashpoint in the bank, because I know they cannot get into

there. Skimmers are being found inside banks. The crime fighters'

challenge is keeping one the criminals' changing tactics.

I am still amazed how easy it was to find people willing to sell us those

kits. Our next on Inside Out, we are talking immigration. At the end of

2013, people from Romania and Bulgaria gained the same rights to

work here in Britain as many other European citizens. Although there is

a debate about how many new migrants will head here, we wanted to know

what it is like to arrive in Britain. We sent Nigerian born Andy

Akinwolere to retrace his Birmingham routes and ask why the second city

has such a heritage of welcoming people from abroad.

Birmingham, a city I am proud to call my home. Always good to be

back. Although I think of myself as a Birminghamy. I was born in

Nigeria. My family and I moved here 23 years ago when I was eight. Now,

I am on my way to visit the house we first lived in. I have not been

there for almost 20 years. I mean, I didn't know where I was. I had come

all the way from a very, very warm country to this bitterly cold

country. I had never seen snow before. It was quite frightening. I

will not lie. This is actually quite surreal. You

know, when we first came I actually remember it like it was yesterday.

It was not the best life, if I am honest. There was a park at the

corner. Yes! Yes! It is still here! Wow! I don't know why this bit has

brought a tear to my eye. We were one of thousands of families to come

to Birmingham from oversees to seek new `` overseas to seek new

opportunities and find work. People have come here for decade, bringing

with them their own costumes, food and `` customs, food and traditions.

This market is a real melting pot for all cultures. If we ever want

real talk about multiculturalism in Birmingham, this is the place.

So, has immigration changed the city much? Yes. And for the better. And

for the better. It's great! Have a look ` all different colours.

Brilliant! Have you found Birmingham very accepting and welcoming? Yes.

It's nice. Everyone seems to get along ` I hope, any way! The issue

of immigration is far from straightforward. It is against us

and there's nowhere for us because if you are uneducated, there's

nowhere for you. I understand what he's saying. I think there is still

resources open for black people. Different cultures. Always be a

clash, won't it? You are not up for the immigration process? There 's

nothing you can do about it. The 2011 Census suggests nearly one

quarter of the city's population was born outside the UK. To find out

more I met up with Professor Jenny Philimore.

Is it easy to say that Birmingham is one of the most diverse cities in

the UK? I would say it is the most diverse city. Some research we did

back in 2011 identified people from 187 different countries in

Birmingham and 170 countries in just Handsworth alone. Why do people come

here? They come here because there are employment opportunities,

reasonably priced accommodation. Something which is important is the

diversity of Birmingham itself. People feel they can fit in here. I

know how hard it can be arriving in a new country. We had it easy

compared to others ` particularly asylum seekers. 20,000 arrive in the

UK each year. Many come with nothing but the clothes they are wearing.

Those with nowhere to stay are dispersed around the UK. Wherever

there is space to house them. It is possible that up to 4,000 arrive in

Birmingham each year. Obaidah has arrived from Syria. He

refused to do military service so had to flee his homeland. I left

Syria to Lebanon by car. After that I go to Turkey by plane. I travelled

from Turkey to Greece and go in the jungle and across the river and

hidden from the police, like that. How many days, although? 40. On the

`` all together? 40. On the road? Yes. Were you afraid for your life?

Always you are afraid. You deal with bad people.

With the criminal. You are always afraid. I... You

don't know what will happen to you. While Obaidah waits to find out if

his claim will be approved, life will be hard. Asylum seekers are not

allowed to work and only receive mim `` minimal benefits. It annoys me

that the press that comes out, you know, dehumanising a lot of these

people. They have come from situations you and I cannot really

comprehend. Although immigration and asylum are

political matters, which will always divide opinion, the good news is

there are places that asylum seekers and refugees are always welcome in

Birmingham. Hello, Sister Margaret. Nice to meet

you. This is St Chad's. Sister Margaret set it up three years ago,

with an aim of helping those who need it most. You have a full house

today. Indeed. A lot of different nationalities. They meet each each

other and they enjoy each other's company. The sanctuary at St Chad's

offers a lot of practical help ` from clothing, to hygiene and food

packages. We have some pasta. Some sugar. Sugar... Most of the food is

donated by local churches and charities or even homemade. They

also offer legal advice and English lessons. How are you finding

learning English? Is it difficult? The English language is not easy. It

is very, very hard. What is the hardest thing for you in dwlish to

understand? The abouting `` English to understand? The accent. You are

in Birmingham. This is not like the rest of the country. When I am in

Nigeria, I talk like this. My accent is a bit different. I go to school,

and they are like, all right, Miss. How are you doing? Despite the

smiles many people here have suffered.ing a necessary used to

work for the Government in the Ivory Coast. Because of political conflict

she had to flee, leaving behind a prosperous life. I am des destitute.

I don't have anywhere to live. I don't have food. I don't have

clothes. It is very hard for you to talk

about. It's OK. I came here because I wanted to save

my life. I don't know where is my husband,

where is my children. Sorry! Don't apologise.

Of For Fatima, St Chad's is not just a place for practical support, but

for emotional help. I came here and Sister Margaret helped me. Only not

for food, hygiene, clothes, they helped me mentally and they gave me

hope, that don't worry, everything will be fine. For both women part of

the frustration is not being allowed to work. I don't need benefits.

I need paper. Because, if I have paper, I can set up and run my own

business to pay ` to take care of me. Yourself? Yes.

But the Home Office... You want to work?

This trip back to Birmingham has brought back so many memories. I

realise how lucky my family were. Some of the stories are

heartbreaking. One thing is for sure though, with so many new people

coming in every year, it will be fascinating to see how Birmingham

evolves in years to come. Well, if you have a story to tell

about settling here in the West Midlands, do drop me an e`mail.

You can join in the debate on our Facebook page.

Next, we have heard of Passdendales, the Somme and Ypres, but there is a

lesser known First World War battle, which some historians believed

affected the outcome than any of them. In a tiny Belgium village,

called Gheluvelt. The regiment of Worcester became the

last defence. 100 years later and we sent descendants of two of the men

who fought there to find out what happened to them.

My great grandfather had three children. I have three children. I

have often wondered what it would be like to go to war leaving those

children behind. I am following in my grandfather's

footsteps who was part of the Worcestershire regiment who went to

France in August 1914. Matthew and Peter are leaving for

Belgium. Both their families share an important, but little known war

story. Neither of them know the full story.

Matthew's great granddad and Peter's granddad left their families at home

in the West Midlands to fight the Germans in World War I. Only one of

them came home. Over the next four years, we will

remember those who fought and died in scores of battles during the

First World War. As a historian I have spent years researching them. I

am joining these men to understand how crucial the actions of their

ancestors were. These are the woods woods ` this is were the story

started. In July 1914, three months after the war started, the Germans

had virtually broken through the British line in Belgium. They were

on their way to the channel ports, just 30 miles away. If they got

there, the war was effectively over because the ports were the key to

controlling food and ammunition supplies. We have come to where

Albert and Fred got ready for battle with the second Worcestershire

regiment: We don't know what your great grandfather did during the

course of the battle. We know how the battle unfolded around them

because we have the original war diaries.

Around 500 Worcesters were resting in this wood. They were already

shattered from previous battles. Here, amongst the trees, they could

hear fighting going on around them. And then comes the call to arms.

They were the only reserve battalion in the area who could be mobilised

at short notice and help out their colleagues who were trying to defend

the position and keep the line together. Matthew, you have got

three young children as well, just like your great grandfather. How

would you feel if you suddenly heard that order and knowing that you

might never see them again? I don't think there are many words to

describe how I would feel. It would be like having your heart ripped out

of you. If I had a photo or letter, that would be your last contact with

them. Kiss them goodbye. My grandfather had been married less

than two years. He left behind a young wife.

And after just recently they had been through two big battles, you

wonder how long the possibility is that you will last.

Fred was only 20. He joined the Army in 1912. With a young wife and new

baby waiting in Birmingham, he was a long way from home. So was Albert.

At 28, his wife, Emma and their three young boys would have been on

his mind. He now had a rifle in his hand, bayonet fixed. The two

soldiers wrote home. 100 years later Peter and Matthew understand why

they feared these messages could be their last.

It is really brief. It is really to the point.

It says "Dear wife, this is my last goodbye to you and to Ivy. God bless

and keep you safe. Your loving husband, Fred."

Ivy was his daughter. She was only five months old. This could have

been his last goodbye. It makes you really think.

The Worcester's target was the German`held chateau, in Gheluvelt,

two miles away. They had to get across these huge open fields. They

were easy targets. So this area would have exploded with shell fire.

They are faced with stragglered coming towards them, some screaming,

some crying. The British started their own artillery bombardment. So

this area would have exploded with shells. This field is likely to be

the site of Albert's last charge. Matthew, we don't know where your

great grandfather fell, but it is likely that it would have been

during this initial karnage. How do you feel being here? Very

humbling. Very humbling. Very emotional. These

were possibly his last steps. Running forward, I don't know what

would have gone through his mind. And then hit, on the ground ` he's a

hero. I think he gave his life for his

family. Almost 200 Worcesters died alongside

Albert. For Fred and the 300 or so left, the fighting was not over. The

few surviving South Wales borders they had to attack the chateau at

Gheluvelt. The skirmish continued in the village itself. Near the Church

the fighting was at its heaviest. It seems incredible how such a small

force drove off a German army. It seems they were taken by surprise by

the ferocity of the onslaught and assumed a large force was following

behind. We don't know when your grandfather was injured. Given he

had a gunshot wound and there was hand`to`hand fighting ` this could

be the spot where he got hit. It is hard to believe this could be the

spot where he could have been wounded.

And it is a possibility that that wound saved his life. Because being

wounded, he was taken out, he was no longer physically fit for war

service. He was out of the danger area.

Gheluvelt was utterly destroyed within a few hours. Even though this

small village outside Ypres bears little resemblance today, they still

remember the Worcestershire sacrifice. This is a local

historian, who can fill in some blanks about how the wounded

soldiers would have been treated. He would have been brought with

stretcher bearers to the regimental out post, where they would keep care

of him. The medicine was not the same. A light wound could be deadly.

I have read about people in the past, a light wound, if it was not

treated and infection got in, it could kill them. He's been here for

our freedom and democracy also. That is why we are very keen to see you

here. Fred's shot in the arm may have saved his life. He re`enlisted

twice more and served in the Second World War. He was a tough old

soldier, who lived well into his 80s. After the battle, Matthew's

great grapd father was buried at the China Wall cemetery near Ypres. Now

it is time to find the ending of Albert's story. I have read a lot

about Albert. I have read his letters. Seen the certificates. Now

I have taken a ` I have trodden in his footsteps through the battle of

Gheluvelt. I feel I can take this home and show my children and say

how proud I am and how proud they should be of my great grandfather

and what he did. Before they returned to their

families, Peter and Matthew take a detour to the gate at Ypres, to lay

a wreath for the second Worcesters, where the last post is still played

every night. Well, for the next four years, the

be BBC will focus on all aspects of the First World War. And if you have

got a story that you think we should tell, drop me an e`mail.

But, that is it for tonight from Worcester. Thanks for watching and I

will see you next time. Next week they will follow the city

kittens escaping for a new life in the cots wold.

`` cots wolds. Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your

90 second update. There are more spending cuts on the

way. The Chancellor says ?25 billion worth of savings need to be made

after the next election. At least half of it is likely to come from

the welfare budget. Full details at ten.

Parts of the UK have been hit by more storms. The Welsh coast was

among the areas hardest hit, with more bad weather to come. Your local

forecast in a moment. How did Jimmy Savile evade justice