Posted on 09/04/2002 6:32:06 PM PDT by aculeus
When Peter Foster's briefcase was stolen at a petrol station, the thieves were filmed on CCTV and witnesses noted their description and car registration. He told police within two minutes . . . they did nothing. This is his account of a disturbing failure of law and order
This is a story which will dismay ordinary citizens but delight criminals everywhere. It begins shortly after 6.10pm on Monday night when, returning to London from covering a story in Oxfordshire, I pulled into a BP petrol station on the A40 to fill up.
Heeding the signs warning about sneak thieves, I double-checked the car was locked, grabbed my credit cards and went into the forecourt shop to pay.
But locks do not deter modern thieves. While I was making a pit-stop of my own, three men I had not seen loitering were preparing to make their move.
It was a classic "smash and grab" manoeuvre. They smashed the rear passenger window and grabbed the briefcase which was sitting on the back seat where, stupidly I now realise, I had left it.
Emerging from the gents to a cacophony of car horns, my initial dismay was soothed by another quick-thinking customer who had written down the registration of the thieves' get-away vehicle - E487 REP.
Mobile phone records show that I dialled 999 at 18.14 - no more than two minutes after the incident - and passed the registration number, a description of the car and its occupants to the police.
The three thieves were white; they were driving a blue-grey Vauxhall Cavalier and the culprit himself was wearing a beige top or sweater. Witnesses estimated one of them to be no more than 14 or 15 years old.
The policeman advised me to remain with the vehicle and await the arrival of a patrol car, which I did, feeling rather pleased with myself for having played the amateur detective.
After half an hour, as I stood waiting for the police to show up, I fondly imagined that they were busy tracking the thieves on closed circuit television or by some other means.
It was after 7.30pm - an hour and a quarter later - when Ealing police telephoned me on the mobile to say they were very sorry but because of staff shortages and "a fatal incident" elsewhere, they had been unable to track down the thieves.
There was no point, the officer added, in coming out to look at a broken car window. I should go home and someone would call me to take a statement and give me a crime number for the insurance. Unfortunately, I have since learned that, because the bag was not locked in the boot, its contents were not insured - a mistake I shall not make again.
I agreed, sympathising with the officer on the phone about police manning levels, and adding that I understood that chasing my briefcase across London was the least of their worries. "All victims of crime are important to us, sir", he added, as if reading his lines from a prompt card.
Out of curiosity, I asked about the vehicle registration, assuming it was a stolen car, but the officer said it was not. I passed on the fact that the whole thing had been caught on the petrol station's CCTV cameras.
It was only after I had returned home that I started to become angry. How could three men, in full view of cameras and customers, pull off such a thing and think they could get away with it?
The answer is simple: because they can. The thieves and muggers that plague London know better than anyone that the police are just too busy to bother with plain old theft. Perhaps I should have got myself stabbed or shot.
The manager of the garage confirmed what local thieves already know. This was the third incident of its kind in the last month - the first time a car was stolen, then it was a mobile phone from an unlocked vehicle and now my briefcase. The police only bothered to turn up once.
The following afternoon, having heard nothing from Ealing police, I called them myself. The officer on the crime desk was again apologetic. My case, she said, had been marked "non-urgent" and passed to the telephone statement team, but there was quite a backlog. It would be two to three days. I wondered if anyone had been to the garage to check the CCTV, or even knocked on the door of the registered owner of E487 REP?
The crime desk did not know, but assured me if anything turned up I'll be the first to know. I shan't hold my breath.
On Wednesday night, almost exactly 48 hours after the thieves made their getaway, Ealing police finally telephoned to take down the details of the stolen property and give me a crime number.
It is clear from our conversation that no one had tried to trace the vehicle's owners or contact the garage to review the CCTV footage. The officer said he would put a note on the computer so that if the car was stopped ever the traffic department would know that it was involved in the theft.
I commiserated with charming Pc John Cord about the shortage of police officers to deal with the rising tide of crime. He said he heard this from the public every day. "I'm sorry we can't do more for you."
Yup. In more ways than one.
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