Caught someone breaking into my car!

[Globalbloke (Tim)]

You wouldn't believe it, I was settling down to watch the F1 at about 2:30 ish yeaterday, laid out on the sofa ready for the 2:45 kick off and suddenly my daughter screams from upstairs that someone is trying to break into my car. First of all I thought this just meant that some kids were hanging about near it and opened the front door with remote in one hand and my slippers on and there are three kids round the side of my car and one in it! Wish I had never had shouted at this point but I did and they took off with me not far behind, missed one of them by a few feet and gave chase.

Got about 2 roads away at full chat (in my socks) and ran out of puff but all the neighbours had been alerted and were appearing from various directions, missus phoned 999 and to give them their due the police were there in minutes. We know where they went, we tried the usual places where kids would hide and nothing, so went back and talked to the nice Policeman about it. Now this is the bit that pissed me off, I'm not a small bloke (6" 5) and the policeman said that if I had caught one my first reaction would have been to stove his face into the nearest object (true) but he said that I would have been the one off the police station with him and the one probably prosecuted (but agreed he would have had the same reaction).

So it's official, the world has gone mad, I can't protect my property and I may as well line up all my wordly goods for the scum of this world to help themselves to with little to no punishment.

At about 5pm another neighbour spotted what she thought were the boys near the Abbey so we jumped in here car and yes, three boys looking identical to the ones I chased were now in different clothes (almost) so we pretended to walk past and the turned on them at the last minute and asked some "questions". It always amazes me the guilt that can come from one person, his first reaction when I said that I had chased him not 2 hours ago was "can you prove that mate?", and the others just pretended we weren't there and tried to front it out. Of course they all had an alibi, one even said he was on community service at the time....... ffs.

So we left them to it (I had listened to Mr Plod's advice even though every part of me told me to grab his face and pile it into the nearest bit of stone), we told the police where they were and we also know their Dad's and we let them know that we knew who they were. Handy having a well connected neighbour and best mate.

Later on we found my ipod earphones under the neighbours van and a lighter I had in the car that had run out of gas so have preserved the lighter for possible prints, CSI are out this morning to finger print the car so we will see what happens. There wasn't anything else to nick in there and the stupid s***'s didn't know how to open the secret compartment on the arm rest.

How did they get into my car? That is a mystery, I am fantical about locking it, always watch for the indicators to flash but it does appear it must have been open. Both sets of keys were on the table so it is possible one of the children was playing with the keys and accidentally opened it or I did just leave it open. You honestly wouldn't believe it where I live, stuff like this doesn't happen round here and the policemen have the easiest job in the world, he even said things like this are very rare.

Rant over, moral of story, make sure your car is locked,

[maccafan]

The law is an ass..

Seems to assist people who flout it rather than people who respect it. The courts are a joke with circuit judges afraid to act on their own orders.

I symapthise with your situation Tim..

[Sandra (aka Chillax)]

Arghhhhh this is what bugs me about this country and my pet hate :-[

Some Youngsters have no respect for anything and we have to put up with it :-[

Anyway, I am glad you saved your car, even though there is nowt much will prob be done if they are caught.

We don't have much of this sort of thing either but someone must of seen someone up to a bit of no good last saturday as the police were checking peoples cars. They asked a neighbour if she had seen or heard anything around her car but didn't say anymore than that.

[Globalbloke (Tim)]

Macca - totally agree, the law is geared towards the criminal and also the criminal knows the law, knows what to do to avoid a sentence whereapon the people who respect the law and are honest appear to be constantly victimised, I'm angry, firstly that I may have left the car open, secondly that someone had the nerve to go into my property and thirdly that I didn't catch the so and so, even though the third point may have not been a great idea!

Sandra - Yes, its what bugs me as well, even though recently the law has loosened a bit in regards to your right to protect your property it also comes with stipulations, because I chased them they were no longer a "threat" and as such I would have been in the wrong if I had adminstered my own form of justice.

Car is fine, no scratches or anything so as you say that's all good. Just cross that someone thinks it is their right to mess with my property.

[Karma]

My car door was very badly damaged a few years ago. It was a local ned who was extremely drunk on a moped. The rubber of the handlbars was ingrained in the big dent/scratch. and ned's moped was damaged.

He and his parents knew that we knew full well what had happened so they reported that someone had 'moved' little ned's moped in the middle of the night ??? Could not possibly have been him, he was very drunk so mum had taken his keys off him, yeah right!

It's not just the law that's an ass, some parents are too!

[shamreez]

its a shame that the law works this way...

I guess if we had some relaxed laws on the ways we could deal with criminals than crime would come low (I dont think many would try to think of stealing from a 6.4 Tim)

[River]

Pity you know them

let me tell what happened to me but i didnt know them.
I was driving about 3 years ago in the snow and was passing some lads in the middle of the road,just as i approached 1 of the threw what i thought was a snowball.....till it hit my car
frightened the living daylights out of me,by the dent in the car must have been a brick or something hidden in the snowball.........stopped the car and watched them run off.....drove off fuming....but this was eating away at me and i couldnt leave it so about 30mins later i had a drive back and to my delight the twat who threw the "snowball" was walking along the street so pulled up about 20 feet infront of him and got out and waited till he got by me,i grabbed him and asked the usual questions "why did you do it" etc and of course "it wasnt me mate it was the other lad" well i knew it was him so i pinned him against the passengers side of the car,grabbed his arm,opened the passenger side door,held his hand there and slammed the door shut,dont think he will be throwing anymore snowballs anymore,And it made me feel a hell of a lot better

[blakey]

I Once caught two teenagers breaking into my car and I'm not proud of my reaction. Luckily for me these 17 year olds decided not to press charges which was strange because I messed them up quite a bit, our lovely police were encouraging them to prosecute > they scorned on me, telling me it was my fault, my crime was leaving an empty fag packet on the center consul which could be mistaken for a full pack and therefore I put temptation in their way. That didn't explain why they were trying to remove my stereo mind you I paid for it for the next two years, Car got damaged regularly and it cost a small fortune to keep repairing and I was never at the scene to see who was doing it and the police weren't interested. Then my then girlfriend and I got invited to one of her workfriends house and one of these teenagers actually lived there unbeknown to me. I said nothing and got up and left which I admit must've been embarrassing for her. When she quizzed me I told her why and that caused a rift between her and her friend. When I next saw that teenager I looked him square in the eye and told him that if I got any more trouble then I now knew where he lived, from that point on it all ended. All of this trauma could have been avoided for everybody if a basic respect for peoples property had been instilled into the type of scum that commit these crimes.

[Globalbloke (Tim)]

Brilliant River, lucky you got away with that, I so wish I had had "that" opportunity yesterday.... And Blakey, I do hope I don't end up in a house with one of these scrotes, I would not be as polite as you!

Just had a chat with the awesome CSI lady, she has got some excellent prints off the lighter I found and the car has some great prints as well so she is confident that they should get a match! The other thing she said was if I was to do some damage to a little scrote in the future if I keep the damage to the front of the body it's harder for anyone to prove, she also said she would like to leave me a scenes of crime suit so if I did accidentally decide to administer some "justice" my DNA would be lacking. As said, aswesome CSI lady!

[Gordy]

its truly unbelievable what these little oiks get up to ...a complete disrespect for everyone and everything ....problem as you know there is no consequence's for them

[Karma]

I totally agree Gordy but perhaps if parents had shown the little oiks the consequences of their actions when younger they wouldn't behave so badly as teenagers.

If you don't teach kids about boundaries and respect while young it becomes to late once they hit their teen years.

What worries me is that some of these little oiks are now having babies themselves!

[Gordy]

i dont think the parents are much better to be honest ....trouble breeds trouble

[Chrissie]

Completely agree with karma - it worries me the thought of them having kids themselves

[Anne (fuzzy)]

It's always 'hoody d*** heads' as I call them who do these sort of things. We live in a quiet cul-de-sac on the outskirts of town and have a classic car up our drive. One night a couple of years ago, 2 hdh's tried to hot wire the car, but got away, fortunately without the car as the battery was flat.
The only other things that's happened to us is some yobs snapped our car aerial off in Tesco car park years ago. A customer saw them and dragged them in to the security doorman by their earlobes, lol. They got fined £5 each as they were both unemployed. Pfft. And a tramp broke into our caravan one night and slept in it. He left a filthy old blanket in there. Yuck.
We've been very lucky compared to others in this thread.

[Gordy]

i wear a hoody