On Monday I visited a local retail park and parked next to a new Lexus 300. When getting out of the car I noticed a mobile phone in the pocket between the seats and thought 'there's an invitation for a local scroat'. I then look in the car further and there was a Nikon SLR digital camera sat on the passenger seat. Needless to say sitting on the backseat was a lovely looking Dell laptop!!
There was so much hi-tech gear in there I was suspicious of it being a set up, but I have the feeling the owner was just plain stupid! How many times do we need to be told not to leave valuables on siplay?
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It was stupidity.
The Met used to borrow prestige cars (as they were more attractive to scroats) and load it with invitations as described. To prevent damage they left the cars unlocked.
In 99% of the cases scroat came along and lobbed brick through window reached in and nabbed invitations. (its faster & you cant leave prints on a brick)
So Plod do not use new prestige cars for baited traps like this, its too expensive!
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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There was a pearler locally. Police parked a honey trap (Ford Escort rigged withabout £5k's worth of cameras) along comes the tea leaf and breaks into every other car in the car and skips the Honey Trap - brilliant. Interviewed later he said he didn't break into the Escort as it obviously belonged to a poor person.
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he saidhe didn't break into the Escort as it obviously belonged to a poor person.
Couldn't agree more :oD
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>Needless to say sitting on the backseat was a lovely looking Dell laptop!!
Definitely a setup. Are you sure you weren't temporarily transported to a different universe in which Michael Dell wears black polo necks and Steve jobs has a severe haircut and drives a Hummer?
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Only one way to find out for sure. And you would have to be a toerag for that, unless you were fortunate enough to be present when an incautious one came along.
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I was walking to work through Brook Green, West London a few years ago (just where Arthur Daley used to have his car lot as it happens) and I passed a beautiful Mercedes SEC like the one Brian Sewell drives. Its key was in the door lock just dangling there tempting me. I?m no thief or toe rag but what would have been the harm of just driving it aroung the green a couple of times before parking it back where I found it? I contemplated it for a minute or two then bottled out.
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Around 1960 a frisky Guards officer of my acquaintance stole a Lancia B20 in Chelsea and drove it to Oxford and back, making the return trip on the old A40 from Headington roundabout to Denham in an alleged 37 minutes (I wasn't present so didn't time it myself).
Afterwards he returned the Lancia to its parking place. We used to wonder whether the owner had even noticed.
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Around 1960 a frisky Guards officer of my acquaintance stole a Lancia B20 in Chelsea and drove it to Oxford and back, making the return trip on the old A40 from Headington roundabout to Denham in an alleged 37 minutes (I wasn't present so didn't time it myself). Afterwards he returned the Lancia to its parking place. We used to wonder whether the owner had even noticed.
Denham Eh! Did you ever use the Lambert Arms P.H. just off the Denham roundabout on the way into Uxbridge? circa 73-77
Happy days..............M.D.
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Stupidity perhaps,but then why should you not be able to leave valuables in your locked car or house or anywhere.If the scroats risked having their hands cut off,the crime rate would be negligible.
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Actually that would depend on how desperate people were. In the middle ages a man could be hanged for stealing a sheep (value 4d, although of course fourpence was really worth fourpence in those days), but presumably they still did it.
Since about a third of the modern population seem to think it's more or less OK to steal, though, leaving valuables on display in the car is asking for trouble. Indeed there are some who say it's wicked to tempt people in this way, LOL.
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There is no risk. They're never caught.
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I left my broken-down Rover 100 in an urban lay-by over a weekend till I could deal with it.
I expected to find it wrecked but it was exactly as I'd left it. The local yobs probably thought it was a set-up as well!
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That's right. You can be lucky. They are much more inclined to steal, break into and vandalise new or expensive cars. But these things seem to come in waves. Depends where Satan and the Idle Hands happen to be at the time.
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There is a certain class of criminal that still has the honour of yore - either that or they know that there's nothing worth nicking from an apparantly clapped out motor.
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There is a certain class of criminal that still has the honour of yore
I wd agree, some thieves might sympathise with the owners of some cars if that's what you mean PU, sort of workers' solidarity thing or even something kinder, 'That's a nice old motor, can't get parts too easily, leave it alone...'
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When searching records came across these. The good old days.
Richard TAYLOR, 32, Guilty of shop breaking. To be transported beyond the seas for the term of ten years.
James KNOWLES – Guilty of the like – To be imprisoned and kept to hard labour in the said House of Correction at Wakefield for one year.
5 March 1785, JOHN FORTUNE, guilty of stealing Linen from a Bleaching-Croft above the value of ten Shillings. To be Hanged on Saturday the second day of April next.
John HUTCHINSON alias John SOWLEY aged 50 years
Received 1st June 1826
Brought before the Court 8th July 1826
"Charged upon the oath of Charles HORNBY of Osmertherly (sic) in the North Riding Innkeeper with having on the 12th day of May last, feloniously stolen, taken and carried away from and out of the dwelling house of him the said Charles HORNBY aforesaid sundry articles to wit ten yards of blue cloth and two brass candlesticks of the value of ten shillings the property of the said Charles HORNBY"
verdict: Guilty. Judgement of death entered on record.
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Round here they will have anything with wheels on.My wheel barrow dissapeared from my back garden,I found it a few streets away completely trashed and with the wheel gone,must have been used for joyriding.
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If you are a total Muppet and really must leave you laptop with your car, leave it on the roof and that way at least the thieving scumbag won't have the inflict damage aswell by busting the window or screwing the doorlock.
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5 or so years ago I arrived at university in Middlesbrough and went straight out to buy a DVD player..poped it under the front seat and went for a pint - came back 20 mins later with a screw drivered lock and a missing DVD player.
Stupid but never done it again!!
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I have nothing worth stealing. Nonetheless my car was still broken into last year, window smashed. And I was actually rather embarrassed that they had gone through my (admittedly tiny) CD collection and left them all behind. I think I might have felt slightly better if they had at least stolen something.
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