a day ago
The Telegraph readers who did the police's job themselves
When Mia Forbes Pirie and her husband Mark Simpson found their Jaguar E-Pace had been stolen from outside their house in west London, they used the AirTag it was fitted with to discover it was now parked less than three miles away. Keen to act as quickly as possible, they contacted the police – who gave no indication as to whether they could help or not. In the end, the couple was forced to retrieve the stolen car themselves.
We covered this story earlier in the week, and outrage followed – as did, rather tellingly, an outpouring of weary recognition. Hundreds of Telegraph readers got in touch to say: us too. When our things are stolen – be it bikes, laptops, mobile phones or cars – we no longer expect the cavalry. Instead, we find ourselves playing detective with AirTags, GPS tracking and doorbell cameras. In other words, doing the police's job for them.
It is vigilante justice via the apps on our phones. And, given how few thefts result in a charge and how many cases are closed almost as soon as they are opened, it seems increasingly like the best tool at our disposal.
John Devaney, a 48-year-old property maintenance worker from the Thames Valley, is still haunted by the memory of waking up to discover his beloved Triumph Stag, a 1970s classic worth £10,000, had vanished from his garage. He turned to the tracker app on his phone. There it was: parked on a driveway 25 miles away.
He called the police and gave them the address. 'They said they would send someone at some point in time,' he recalls. 'That it wouldn't be long.'
Frustrated and anxious, Devaney drove there himself, hoping to meet the police. After half an hour of waiting, he decided to investigate alone. Under a tarpaulin in the driveway, he thought he could see a shape that looked suspiciously like his car – and when he lifted it to confirm, a man inside the house came out. 'He said he had bought it in a pub last night,' says Devaney. 'I said, 'No, you nicked it from my garage.''
The man then jumped in the car, mowed through the neighbour's hedge and sped off. Devaney followed. Eventually, he found the car abandoned at an industrial park. He rang the police again and waited an hour for them to arrive.
There were fingerprints. There was photographic evidence. There was an address. There was even an identity: Devaney says police told him the man was 'known to them'. Still, it was a month before he was interviewed. When the car, which Devaney has now sold, was returned three months later, he was told no further action would be taken.
'I couldn't have handed it to them any better,' he says. 'There was not much more I could have done for them.' According to the police, officers received a report of the theft of a vehicle from a residential property. Detectives carried out a thorough investigation in which a man in his 40s was arrested. Following further enquiries, the case did not meet the threshold for criminal charges.
Another Telegraph reader, pest controller Chris Johnson, 59, and his wife Paula, 57, were struck not once but twice at their house in Kent.
The first time, a white Jeep Wrangler – worth £45,000 – vanished without a trace. The police issued a crime number, and not much else.
Six months later, it happened again. A £39,000 Ford Ranger disappeared from the same spot. This time, however, they had learnt their lesson and fitted it with two trackers. The Johnsons were watching football at home when it happened. 'Someone must have walked straight up and driven off,' Chris says.
The tracker showed it heading towards Eltham, and they immediately called the police. No answer. They jumped into Paula's Mini and followed the signal.
'We eventually tracked it to a housing estate in Eltham,' says Chris. 'We tried the police again, but still nothing. We sat there for 10 minutes watching the car, not knowing what we were walking into. I told Paula to get ready. If anything kicked off when I went to get the vehicle, she was to drive off and leave me.'
Chris cautiously approached his car, tried his key, and to his relief, it unlocked. The thieves had ripped out most of the interior in an attempt to locate the trackers, successfully finding and disabling the manufacturer's system. But Chris's secondary tracker had gone undetected; he drove it home.
The police got back to them hours later. The response? 'Well, you've got it back now.'
Paula recalls explaining to the police that they had wanted them there while they rescued their car because they were scared of what they might find. 'He replied that they were overstretched, even having to work on Sundays, and that was that. We never heard anything more.'
Since then, the Johnsons have doubled down on security: ghost immobilisers, steering locks, the works.
'If Sadiq Khan is putting up all these cameras and charging us more to drive, then why not use them to track down stolen vehicles?' says Chris. 'Imagine how many cars could be recovered. He might even look like a hero.'
A Metropolitan Police spokesman says: 'Every incident of vehicle theft is carefully assessed to identify and pursue possible lines of enquiry, including forensic evidence and available footage. We advise victims to report crimes via appropriate channels.'
Sadly, these are far from isolated cases. Ashley Sollit tells us about the night four electric vehicles were stolen from one street in Brent. His son-in-law – who was one of the victims – had an AirTag in his car and traced it to a council estate nearby, where he later found his and his neighbours' cars. He phoned the police, who advised that he should drive his own vehicle home and tell the neighbours to get theirs. This was, apparently, standard practice, as thieves often leave stolen cars out for a week to see which ones have trackers. When it was suggested to the police that the cars should be left in place to try to catch the criminals, the response from the police was short, but clear. 'We don't have the time.'
Similarly, Ian Smith writes in with a story about his granddaughter, who had her car stolen from the hospital car park where she works. CCTV captured the crime, but when Smith's granddaughter suggested the police watch the footage, as it clearly showed the make and model of the car that the thieves arrived in, she was rebuffed. Luckily, the car was fitted with an insurance tracker; when it pinged with a location, the police told her to collect it herself.
There is something rather depressing about these remarkably similar stories that speak to our new normal. We know, of course, that resources are stretched – but the message felt by many Britons is a stark one: if something is stolen, you're probably on your own. The result? Where we once relied on the police, now we depend on Bluetooth and Apple to keep us safe.
