Stolen & recoverd car questions

[benm3evo]

Hi all.

Bit of a long story but will try & keep it as short as possible.

My friend had his RS6 stolen on Friday. He went out for 30 mins or so at 19:00, when he returned the car was gone. The house had been broken into (no sign of forced entry) the house trashed & various things taken including the keys & log book for the car.

Police were called. They said it is an organised gang that would have been watching the house. A number of RS' have been stolen lately to be used in robberies.

Here's where the interesting bits start happening. The following day the car is found by word of mouth, not by the police. It is parked up about 10 miles away on a housing estate (as the Police said would happen) The car was parked in someone's parking space & it just so happened they had heard it had been stolen, but they didn't know how to contact the owner so they blocked it in & phoned the Police. Within a couple of hours the Police collected the car.

I'm sure there's a good reason but would it not have been better to set some kind of trap to wait for the scallywags to come back for the car? Would they not be caught red-handed?

I'd like to add that I'm not making any accusations or complaining about how it has been dealt with, I just thought I'd put the details on here on behalf of my friend to see what opinions are.

Thanks for any advice.
Ben

Edited by benm3evo on Monday 3rd November 11:19

[Clipper22]

benm3evo said:

I'm sure there's a good reason but would it not have been better to set some kind of trap to wait for the scallywags to come back for the car? Would they not be caught red-handed?

The problem is, you would have no idea how long it could take for them to come back. We haven't got the resources to sit up on a car indefinitely, no matter how much we'd like to.
Also, if they did come back and manage to start driving away, if they then crash and kill someone, the Police would be blamed for not having it recovered when it was first found.

[benm3evo]

Clipper22 said:

The problem is, you would have no idea how long it could take for them to come back. We haven't got the resources to sit up on a car indefinitely, no matter how much we'd like to.
Also, if they did come back and manage to start driving away, if they then crash and kill someone, the Police would be blamed for not having it recovered when it was first found.

Fair comment, thanks for the reply.

To be honest it had crossed my mind that the Police can't just sit waiting for someone that might or might not return. We did wonder whether it is possible to fit some sort of Police tracker to the car once it has been found but perhaps we've been watching too many films!

Cheers, Ben

[TooMany2cvs]

Clipper22 said:

The problem is, you would have no idea how long it could take for them to come back. We haven't got the resources to sit up on a car indefinitely, no matter how much we'd like to.
Also, if they did come back and manage to start driving away, if they then crash and kill someone, the Police would be blamed for not having it recovered when it was first found.

With a side-order, I'd expect of "Stolen? Really...? No, mate, no idea. I've been asked to collect it for a garage." - and now you have no fingerprints inside.

[Slidingpillar]

The leaving of a stolen car is often to see if there is a tracker in it. Many thieves don't want to be involved if it has, so park the car up, and somebody watches and if after a few days, it's still there, should be safe to carry on with.

[ging84]

They are not that stupid
if they've just stolen a car, and they discover where they've stashed it it's been blocked in, they are not going to take the chance that it's probably just someone with nowhere else to park, they are going to assume it's been blocked in by someone who knows it's stolen and the police have been called.

[Sheepshanks]

benm3evo said:

It is parked up about 10 miles away on a housing estate (as the Police said would happen) The car was parked in someone's parking space & it just so happened they had heard it had been stolen, but they didn't know how to contact the owner so they blocked it in & phoned the Police.

Blimey - what are the chances of that?

I'm surprised it doesn't have a tracker - I'd have expected that would mandatory on an RS6.

Guy I know through work got rid of his RS6 after the second time it was taken off him by force - his missus made him get rid as she wasn't keen on the idea of him being killed for his car.

[Mk3Spitfire]

I'm not sure if there would be RIPA issues as well. I know there are with "bait" vehicles. But apart from that, as clipper says, there's sadly not the resources to park a couple of cops indefinitely. Shame, because there's no better feeling than catching the little darlings red handed.

[Mk3Spitfire]

I'm not sure if there would be RIPA issues as well. I know there are with "bait" vehicles. But apart from that, as clipper says, there's sadly not the resources to park a couple of cops indefinitely. Shame, because there's no better feeling than catching the little darlings red handed.

[LouD86]

Mk3Spitfire said:

as clipper says, there's sadly not the resources to park a couple of cops indefinitely.

This winds me up a tad, especially when I see a police car sat for 4-5 hours with a speed gun on the road to my house, and frequently. They have plenty of time

[sherbertdip]

LouD86 said:

Mk3Spitfire said:

as clipper says, there's sadly not the resources to park a couple of cops indefinitely.

This winds me up a tad, especially when I see a police car sat for 4-5 hours with a speed gun on the road to my house, and frequently. They have plenty of time

Why get wound up when you see them doing their job and actually trying to catch people breaking the law?

You should be wound up if you found out they were spending 4-5hrs in the station doing lots of paperwork instead of out catching people breaking the law.

[Mk3Spitfire]

sherbertdip said:

Why get wound up when you see them doing their job and actually trying to catch people breaking the law?

You should be wound up if you found out they were spending 4-5hrs in the station doing lots of paperwork instead of out catching people breaking the law.

Sadly I doubt he will see this point of view.
Also the fact that you will never see a response car parked up for that amount of time will be ignored.

[Elroy Blue]

Mk3Spitfire said:

I'm not sure if there would be RIPA issues as well. I know there are with "bait" vehicles. But apart from that, as clipper says, there's sadly not the resources to park a couple of cops indefinitely. Shame, because there's no better feeling than catching the little darlings red handed.

No RIPA issue when you're sat in an public space looking at a parked car. However, plenty of issues as already mentioned about liabilities and resources. The number one objective where stolen cars is concerned is to PREVENT a pursuit, so recovering it will often be the preferred option. If this was an older RS6 in the midlands, I know the job and it was/is very much on our radar.

[benm3evo]

Elroy Blue said:

If this was an older RS6 in the midlands, I know the job and it was/is very much on our radar.

Yep that sounds like the same one.

Likely plan was to be used in 'jobs' in Merseyside according to the Officer that visited my mate's house. Almost puts you off have a nice motor...

[numtumfutunch]

I had a similar experience with a stolen bike

A week after the theft I was called at midnight to say it had been recovered outside a suspected drug den in the middle of a sink estate
I suggested to the chap on the phone they may wish to keep an eye on it and catch the thief but as has been said here was told there are not sufficient resources for this

When I went to recover it at a safe hour it was gone again, not only that but the case was marked as solved and I had to go and queue up all over again to report the second theft, which was not cool.........

[Mk3Spitfire]

Elroy Blue said:

No RIPA issue when you're sat in an public space looking at a parked car. However, plenty of issues as already mentioned about liabilities and resources. The number one objective where stolen cars is concerned is to PREVENT a pursuit, so recovering it will often be the preferred option. If this was an older RS6 in the midlands, I know the job and it was/is very much on our radar.

I know when we did it in my last force, the CPS gave us very strict guidelines and timings. If nothing happened within that time, even if it looked like it was about to, we had to call it off. Maybe it was just CPS, but I renenber it being a headache.

[Tribal Chestnut]

Mk3Spitfire said:

Sadly I doubt he will see this point of view.
Also the fact that you will never see a response car parked up for that amount of time will be ignored.

Someone somewhere makes the choice of how to allocate resources though, and I think it is this misallocation that is being highlighted.

Cashing in on speeding motorists, on a stretch of road that is not seen as dangerous, will always be seen as a poor use of limited resources when 'proper' crimes aren't given the attention they warrant.

[Mk3Spitfire]

Tribal Chestnut said:

.

Cashing in on speeding motorists, on a stretch of road that is not seen as dangerous, will always be seen as a poor use of limited resources when 'proper' crimes aren't given the attention they warrant.

Always seen by SOME. Others see it as stopping people breaking the law. I don't know which camp I'm in. Traffic officers though, will almost never be dealing with the same cases as response officers do. They are a separate dept designed to deal with specifically traffic matters.

[FurryExocet]

We do sometimes sit up on vehicles, but it's not very often and it all depends on how big the Ops Room inspectors balls are that day. We did one the other week, disabled the vehicle so that it could not be driven and spent hours watching it. No one showed up the whole day, so it was lifted for soco. Very, very, very boring shift, but the owner was very happy as they got the car back within 24hrs of it being nicked.

They might not come back to the car for several days, or longer, all depends on what they have planned for it. Most of the RS models are used to commit other crime

[Eclassy]

Is there any particular reason why powerful cars like the RS6 are being taken to carry out other crimes?

Is it because it will make a fast getaway vehicle? I would have thought criminals will be more likely to use ordinary everyday cars so as not to stick out.