Low level crime in ED - experiences

[thejournalist]

Last night thieves nicked my scooter wing-mirror. Apart from being a depressing start to this morning, it's also expensive to replace and dangerous to drive in rush hour. This is another in a long list of thefts from my bike. Mainly fuel - lost track of how many times it's been drained - but also bodywork theft. I'm interested hear of other experiences of low level crime. Any solution or do we just put up with it.

[uncleglen]

This type of vandalism has happened to my car in the last five years, after living in ED for 18 years. I don't think there is a solution- unless you catch someone red-handed.

[BigED]

A long time ago, in the first few years I lived in ED, I had a wing mirror smashed off one car. Fast forward a couple of years and my "new" car was found one evening outside my home up on bricks, the wheels pinched. And less than a month later, while I was away, a tow truck came and stole the rest of the car very quickly one morning - no attempt to find the owner of the vehicle with its tax disc, no attempt to knock on any doors; they just smashed the side windows, ran a chain through it, hauled it up onto the truck and drove off with the car hanging slightly over the edge. All this was seen by a neighbour who got the name of the company on the truck but didn't have time to see the licence plate. It was reported to an unusually useless PC at ED Police Station. Despite having details of time, location, company, he made no inroads into locating the vehicle. Better still, he just phoned the company to mention it to them - so, you know, if any of your blokes picked up a car they shouldn't have, best to lose it quickly. (My other experiences with ED Police Station were much more helpful and I am sorry to see it gone, but that bloke was an eejit).

Anyway, low level crime in ED - nothing new about it. Don't get me started on the graffiti and coming home to find "F*** your mum" painted on the wall.

As for fuel theft - a lockable petrol cap would help (why don't manufacturers design them like that?). And a bike cover.

[Jeremy]

Someone nicked the glass out of my wing mirror a couple of years ago. Just the glass. And of course being a modern(ish) car with electric/heated/auto-tint mirrors, it cost a bomb to replace. Was obviously a case of somebody with the same car wanting the part. Really annoying and selfish, but what can you do?

This stuff happens everywhere though. I don't think ED - or even London - are disproportionately affected.

[JohnL]

I've had my windows smashed and wing mirrors broken over the last few years

- in a secure underground car park too.

[Penguin68]

The problem is that the motivation for these crimes can be quite different - opportunistic theft for gain or benefit, casual vandalism and (for things like hub caps and insiginia) 'collecting' mania, which seems to come in waves - a remedy and precaution against one will not necessarily deter another (although some of the things described above do not fall into the 'low level' crime category, in my view).