'We got our stolen car back ourselves because police are too stretched to help'

Yahoo

7 hours ago

A couple who "stole back" their car after it was taken by thieves have said they have "huge sympathy" for overstretched police.
Mia Forbes Pirie, 48, and her husband Mark Simpson, 62, had their Jaguar stolen from outside their home in Brook Green, west London.
An AirTag locator placed in their car last pinged on their road early last Wednesday morning, but after they noticed it was gone it later updated to a location about three miles away in Chiswick.
Their Jaguar E-Pace was fitted with a ghost immobiliser - which requires a pin code - meaning they believe their vehicle was moved using a flat bed truck.
They called police, who said they would send a patrol car to the location in Chiswick, but the couple didn't know how long that would take so decided to go themselves as it was only a nine-minute drive.
They found the car on a back street, and the thieves had ripped out its interior and carpets in an effort to access its wiring so they could drive it.
Pirie, a mediator, and Simpson, a barrister, had installed the extra security on their car after having a previous vehicle stolen.
Pirie posted an image of the recovered vehicle on LinkedIn and said: "I have to confess... it was kind of fun stealing back our own car."
She told Yahoo News on Monday she was "excited" to find the car as she had worried the AirTag on a keyring had been found by the thieves and discarded.
Asked about retrieving the vehicle themselves, she said: "People seem to think it's fun or brave. I don't really think it's brave."
She said the Metropolitan Police did not refuse to help but "were just a bit slow and we didn't know how long it would take".
Asked about the response from the force, she said: "Given how stretched they are. I think it was okay. They were nice and polite. Obviously, in an ideal world they would have acted quicker.
"But we both have huge sympathy with how stretched the police are on such low resources. We realise that they have to focus their limited resources on more serious crimes.
"Obviously, there are really difficult decisions they have to make as to how they use the limited resources they have. I think on the whole they do a good job with very restricted resources."
Pirie said the force told her they will send officers to their home on Tuesday to investigate further. Yahoo News has approached the Metropolitan Police for comment.
The RAC advises that owners should always double check their car is actually locked even after using the key fob.
This is because some thieves use signal jammers to intercept the signal between the fob and the car, leaving it unlocked, meaning a quick check of the doors is useful.
A key fob box in the home, in which the keys are placed, will also deter a "relay attack", where criminals use a device to transfer a signal to a second box placed alongside the car, tricking the vehicle into perceiving the key to be there and unlocking it.
But the signal cannot pass through metal, so placing the keys inside a fob box or a signal blocking wallet will stop the thieves.
The RAC says motorists should park in well-lit areas that are covered by CCTV and should not display any belongings in the vehicle. It says most modern vehicles come with an immobiliser but that these should be fitted to older cars.
Almost four out of five car thefts are unsolved, according to Home Office data published by the Liberal Democrats at the beginning of this year.
It found that 24,837 car thefts in the three months up to June 2024 did not result in criminals being brought to justice.
The area with the worst record was London, with the Metropolitan Police saying that 90% of all reported car thefts went unsolved, followed by South Yorkshire with 85%.
Across England and Wales, only 2.8% of car theft cases result in someone being charged or summonsed.