Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
Leader: Time to get heavy with metal thieves
Tuesday 14th February 2012, 12:30PM GMT.
Damage caused to war memorial in Manchester after two bronze plaques, which were inscribed with the names of 215 soldiers killed in the first world war, were stolen.
During the war iron railings and metal street furniture disappeared in huge amounts, all going towards the war effort.
Today something similar is happening. But this time it is criminal gangs responsible in furtherance of lining their own pockets.
Literally nothing is safe. In Shropshire, churches have seen lead stripped from their roofs. At least one school was temporarily closed as a result of the thieves’ predations. Drain covers, cabling, batteries from traffic lights – all have been targets of a nationwide epidemic of metal thefts.
In Wolverhampton, they have had to stop putting blue aluminium plaques on buildings of note because they were so attractive to the crooks. In future, less valuable cast iron will be used instead.
Most despicably of all, in some areas metal war memorial plaques have been wrenched off.
The number of prosecutions has been low. Police appear to treat it as relatively petty theft, and the thieves are hard to catch in any event.
A concerted crackdown is long overdue, targeting those directly responsible, and those indirectly responsible – the corrupt scrap dealers with no-questions-asked modes of operation.
What was once an inconvenience has grown to become a web of organised crime causing huge damage and no little danger.
The brazen culprits know they are likely to get away with it, and they are right.
The public needs to be vigilant and the police need to respond with a crackdown on all points of the criminal supply chain.
And anyone wrenching away a war memorial plaque, and anyone handling or disposing of a stolen war memorial plaque, should face an automatic prison sentence of at least five years.
That would send out the message that it is not a game and society is taking these crimes seriously.
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Couldn’t agree more. In the case of the drain covers, someone is going to get killed one night after hitting one of those unprotected drains.
This situation is very similar to the drug trade, if there were no buyers there would be no sellers, so the police need to target the scrap dealers who are keeping this venture going.
Having said that though, they will need support from the courts, and history shows that they have been failing miserably in their sentencing. Bang them up and lose the key for 6 or 7 years inside, no parole.
Rant over, happy Valentines day Shropshire.
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We need to try to understand why people are stealing drain covers. Surely the local authority and police should be putting in place a think tank to engage with the thieves, rather than demonising them as criminals. We need to work with people, not against them.
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Interesting that, I will try to engage with one of these “thieves” sorry i should say victims of society when i next see one stealing lead from a church roof or a war memorial plaque-i really for sorry them and Im sure they will appreciate my concern for them
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It’s a little difficult to establish if this is sarcasm but I’m going to assume it is as no sane individual would suggest that these people are anything other than criminals.
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Peesbody methinks you’re not entirely ‘here for the shooting’ are you.
How quick is your government doing something about scrap-dealers? or is it too far below saving the other mob who’re also stealing the infrastructure of this nation (risk-bankers).
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It’s very simple sir, they are easy to steal, heavy, worth money and there are a lot of them about.
I would say that working with these thieves is not an option. They don’t care if someone, maybe you, or one of your family, loses their life through their selfish actions.
I have suggested bolting them down, not 100% thief proof, but for sure a lot harder to steal. Perhaps using 4 countersunk socket head screws with a specialist size Allen key needed.
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Is there not a strongly made plastic alternative to drain and culvert covers?
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With the cuts in policing throughout the country. I’m sure the thieves are rubbing their hands, knowing they have little chance of being caught.
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It may be time for all scrap dealers to be properly licensed, rigorously inspected and prohibited from doing cash transactions. All scrap metal leaving the country should have to be identifiable to a source or otherwise confiscated. Now that metal theft has become such a serious problem it requires serious measures to prevent it.
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Personally I would chop off their hands, stop them doing it again and a good deterrent.
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Shall we implement Sharia Law in the UK as well?
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That’s exactly the sort of bleeding heart lefty attitude that’s made this country a laughing stock ;)
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Woody for Prime Minister.
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Why in the name of Heaven would we want or need to waste money setting up a think tank? People steal for many reasons, some of them not very pleasant but whatever the reason they’re all acting illegally and need to face punishment for their crimes, as well as unscrupulous scrap merchants who knowingly buy stolen metal. It is after all unlikely that many war memorial plaque’s are just scrapped or that lead from a roof just becomes available by some bod in a van, check, check and double check I say and if in doubt call the Police.
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The thieves have a buyer before they even steal it. The solution is simple.Remove these buyers by closing down pemanently ALL scrap dealers found in possession of ANY stolen metal regardless of quantity.Pleading ignorance is no excuse.
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I totally agree with TOwbar – If there was no way to move these goods on there would be no point in stealing it. The real thieves are those scrap merchants who accept knowing that they are stolen – I would certainly be suspicious if I had a stack of drain covers offered to me. I think they should ask for evidence of where they have got the scrap from and also take the details of the person trying to pass it on – Offical details – Driving licence / passport and something showing an address. If not provided they should be reported to the police there and then.
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We should come down on them like a ton of lead, but I suspect they’d take it to the scrappy.
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Agree but the law is there, police must apply it. theft is theft itself very serious but what they need to do is charge them with all the rest on top so vandalism too, reckless endangerment too, etc etc
perhaps special justice should be allowed for people who desicrate war memorials, i saw on tv a person got 6 months for drunkenly urinating on one even though they were repentant so surely this sort of crime would get 6 yrs just for the act, plus the theft, plus the handling of stolen goods, etc etc etc, link them all together and make sentances tough, not let off for good behavior, tougher sentances for every crime is needed
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