I think we’d all agree that as crimes go, thieving the charity tin from a church is pretty much the lowest of the low, writes Shropshire Star Blogger Emma Suddaby.
We were once shocked that anyone would do something so tasteless, but that grubby little crime has grown-up and we are suffering an epidemic.
Not content with swiping a few measly coppers from the collection plate, unwelcome attention’s been drawn to something much more profitable - prising lead roofing from churches, schools, homes and offices and selling it down the scrappy.
The fact that lead, alongside ferrous metals, has quadrupled in worth in the last year, has made it a viable crime for anyone with a ladder, a torch, a nocturnal lifestyle and a total lack of morals.
Over the last couple of years I’ve watched reports of lead theft increase in leaps and bounds, and I always suspected it was a crime committed by addiction-driven junkies, always resourceful in finding dishonest ways and means of paying for the daily visit to the dealer.
But the rash of recent incidents leads police to believe that it’s now a highly organised crime, with gangs of low-lives, like locusts, swarming an area overnight, stripping lead, along with any other metal items they can find on property exteriors, leaving a path of destruction in their wake for unlucky inhabitants to wake up to in the morning.
Ecclesiastical Insurance Group, responsible for insuring churches all over the country, has received 1,800 claims in the last year from despairing men and women of God, costing them £5.8 million. Many of them have replaced the stolen roof, only for the merciless vermin to come back and nick that, too.
And that’s just the churches. I haven’t even started on the many homes and schools similarly blighted.
The West Midlands is one of the worst hit areas, with 72 claims last year. To give readers a sense of the scale of increase, in 2006 there were 24 claims, and in 2005, there were just four.
And we’ve always had junkies, so I guess the police must be right.
EIG has issued every church it looks after with ‘Smart water’, the invention of an award-winning Telford company, designed to mark offenders with an indelible dye, linking them inextricably to their nefarious nocturnal activities.
I guess that’s better than nothing, but the only way to really dissuade them from a spot of midnight roofing is to remove the motive - we must make scrap dealers more accountable for the goods they buy.
I’m sure there are occasions when the scrap man is genuinely unaware of the origins of purchased metal.
However, while researching this subject, I came across the story of a small Shropshire town that woke up one morning to find that every manhole cover from every road, pavement and car-park in the vicinity, had disappeared in the night.
And I challenge the scrap man who bought 30 man-hole covers, from someone with no proof of ownership and bags under their eyes, to look me in the column and tell me he didn’t suspect they were stolen . . . it wouldn’t take a genius, would it?
Inspirational Emma Suddaby shares her ” highs, lows - and various murky places inbetween” - with her weekly blog. Emma, a finalist in the 2007 Shropshire Star Woman of the Year competition, was diagnosed with aggressive, destructive rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 22. She has since won a dream flying scholarship with the charity Flying Scholarships for the Disabled and is now training for a National Private Pilot’s Licence.
4 Comments
Some blame must be put on the scrap metal deallers who are accepting ‘dodgy’ stuff.
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I feel the need to congratulate you Emma, for being so kind as to publicise the fact that EIG has issued ’smart water’ to help locate these thieves! Of course now, having this information to hand, those “vermin” that can actually read will now in future use gloves instead. Well done! Is it any wonder that the police find it a hard task to catch nocturnal gatherers?
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There are two different systems for SmartWater, once which marks property and another which marks offenders. This means that any lead stolen which has been marked with the property kit, if found at a scrap metal dealer, can be irrefutably linked back to the scene of the theft and its rightful owner. It aims to make the metal unsaleable and is almost impossible to remove or see with the naked eye. I’m sure your average scrap metal merchant would rather give up the guy who sold them the stuff than be prosecuted for handling stolen goods!
It’s a very good deterrent, most effective when its presence is overtly advertised as many offenders won’t touch the stuff. So publicity that it is there actually helps, whether the thief wears gloves or not.
I don’t work for the company by the way, just have had some dealings with the stuff in the past!
And just a small point, but it’s the non-ferrous metals that are rocketing in price, not the ferrous ones so much. Other than that, a great blog highlighting a growing problem!
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another worrying factor is the theft of brewery metal barrels, this all adds to the cost of brewing and is all passed onto the publican who in turn will add the odd penny on the cost of a pint.
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