The End of a Stolen Golf R story

The End of a Stolen Golf R story

Author
Discussion

JeS10

Original Poster:

375 posts

165 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
There’s inevitably hundreds of threads about stolen Golf Rs. I thought I’d share my experience because - unlike the vast majority of people - they actually caught the guy that stole mine and he was charged. The whole stolen car game seems to either be a tertiary enterprise of bigger organised crime gangs or it’s the focus of gangs exporting them or breaking them for parts etc. That seems to be what I garnered from the investigating police officers at least.

Now, the troubling bit. The guy that stole my car (and plead guilty) received a 12 month suspended sentence and 150 hours community service. I know we don’t often get convictions from car thefts but with such sentences I feel like a mug for living a legitimate, crime-free life. Perhaps I’m being unreasonable. The legal professionals are more qualified to make these judgements after all, but I can’t help but think the ‘car crime epidemic’ will continue so long as sentences are relatively palatable. For what it’s worth, the guy had previous for housebreaking and motor vehicle theft.

2Btoo

3,399 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
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You won't find many people who disagree with you on here. However I think that the best deterrent to crime is not stiffer sentences, it's increasing the likelihood of getting caught. If the police managed to catch 50% of culprits in car theft cases then the crime levels would drop very sharply, even if they did little about the sentencing guidelines.

Kawasicki

13,030 posts

234 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Seems unreasonably lenient.

t400ble

1,804 posts

120 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Did they find the car?

dundarach

4,927 posts

227 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
I rarely break the law, even in a 30

Have no debt at all, other than a mortgage

I'm polite, quiet, meek and easily offended


I suspect that I'm wrong in just about every way and my life is no better as a direct result of these characteristics.


I wager my life would be better if I was rude, arrogant, lumped with debt, I had no intention of paying and flounced the law....


It's only a matter of time before the likes of me die out.......

Terminator X

14,886 posts

203 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Slightly O/T but the whole sentencing "thing" gets my goat. If you get 12 months then serve it and out for good behavior. If you are "bad" whilst in there then you serve longer. All this serving 50% of time for good behavior is nuts to me.

TX.

Pica-Pica

13,584 posts

83 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
Seems unreasonably lenient.
Really? Locking him up will cost a helluva lot more to tax-payers. 12 months suspended sentence is no holiday, nor 150 hours unpaid community service, which will probably have to be completed by a certain date.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
dundarach said:
I rarely break the law, even in a 30

Have no debt at all, other than a mortgage

I'm polite, quiet, meek and easily offended


I suspect that I'm wrong in just about every way and my life is no better as a direct result of these characteristics.


I wager my life would be better if I was rude, arrogant, lumped with debt, I had no intention of paying and flounced the law....


It's only a matter of time before the likes of me die out.......
Dundarach, tomorrow :


Retroman

961 posts

132 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
This isn't about a Golf R but a long tale about a stolen car and weak punishment that ruined my friends life for a while.

Friend and his girlfriend lived in Scotland. Both worked fully time.
My friend was told his job was in jeopardy. He could apply for a lower position in Scotland and continue to work with the company or if he wanted to keep his position he would need to relocate to a place of work in England.
He done the latter and moved to Manchester with his girlfriend (she was lucky and got a transfer)

After a short while she fell pregnant and shortly after that my friend had to go off on the sick from his work due to an old injury on his achilles tendon.
She at the time had a brand new Astra with all the bells and whistles.
He had a Corsa 1.3CDTI and fairly modern.

She was using his car to drive him to the hospital for his appointment but when they returnedd (still daylight) they noticed her Astra gone and broken class everywhere.
Called the police and reported it stolen.
Checked CCTV with neighbours etc and video had captured a recovery vehicle pull up, smash the window, load it on and drive away.

My friend realised his spare key for the Corsa was also in the Astra so his neighbours were nice enough to park thier cars in a way that jammed the Corsa into the parking area so it couldn't be moved without moving their cars. Police / insurance co were advised of all of this as well but offered no suggestions / help

Police caught up with the recovery driver who had advised he had a phone call from someone telling him they lost the keys and to go pick up the car and drop it off so he could get the garage to make a new key. Recovery driver didn't question this apparently.
When he dropped the car off he was paid cash and he gave the police all the details about the person who paid him.

Person who paid him was quickly traced by and found by police but they didn't charge him straight away due to gathering more evidence and further investigation.
During this time there were groups of young guys who no one recognized asking people in the street about the Corsa and my friend etc.
Neighbours and my friends heard cars outside, but when they opened the curtains the cars just tore away.

My friend and his girlfriend were stressed out their heads. She was still having to pay finance on the car due to insurance waiting for the police to come to a conclusion with the case. Both getting next to no sleep. Both were worried the stress might cause them to lose the unborn baby so they moved back to Scotland and he lost his job.

Eventually the gentleman was pulled in and question by police. He claimed he ran up a coke debt with some people who "forced him" to deliver them this Astra to clear off his debt.
He was ordered to pay back a huge sum of money to my friends girlfriend and her insurance and gap insurance eventually paid out. The guy who stole the car was actually living with and dating a school teacher and using her and some other nonsense good will / caught up with the wrong people statements he didn't get any jail time at all.

This was all about 3 years ago and so far my friend's girlfriend is still waiting on a payment. He claims he can't pay as has no money but both him and his girlfriend seem to be enjoying the high life with lots of expensive holidays, cars etc looking at their recent public FB posts.

TL;DR?

Guy stole my friends girlfriends car. Made their life hell, got caught and essentially got let off.


ChocolateFrog

24,748 posts

172 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Terminator X said:
Slightly O/T but the whole sentencing "thing" gets my goat. If you get 12 months then serve it and out for good behavior. If you are "bad" whilst in there then you serve longer. All this serving 50% of time for good behavior is nuts to me.

TX.
I'm pretty sure it's got nothing to do with good behaviour either, shy of shanking someone in the showers you'll be getting out in half the time regardless of your behaviour.

shovelheadrob

1,564 posts

170 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
My son has had a couple of vehicles stolen, first one a couple of years ago was a 6 week old M3, keys taken from his 8 month pregnant wife at gun point! Police did arrive PDQ to be fair, but the scrotes had the audacity to call my son with threats if he didn't arrange to give them a considerable sum of money. Nothing happened though. Early this year his Range Rover was stolen from his driveway, as it had a tracker either from new or a previous owner he was able to pay the tracker company to reactivate it, this was over a week after it was stolen so presumably the thieves assumed that by then it was trackerless, the vehicle was located & seized along with other stolen vehicles but the police said that there wasn't enough to charge anyone, go figure! He got another call from the police the same week to say that they'd found his M3 in London still on the original plates!

davek_964

8,782 posts

174 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Pica-Pica said:
...12 months suspended sentence is no holiday...
In what way does a suspended sentence materially affect ones life? I acknowledge that they're not flying him to Tenerife for a fortnight - but assuming he doesn't commit another crime in 12 months (or more to the point - get caught for the ones he almost certainly will commit) - what difference does it make to him?

R32

383 posts

251 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Pica-Pica said:
Really? Locking him up will cost a helluva lot more to tax-payers. 12 months suspended sentence is no holiday, nor 150 hours unpaid community service, which will probably have to be completed by a certain date.
What are the chances of him actually completing the 150 hours unpaid work? I'd bet absolutely zero.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
I was talking to a copper the other night who had been called to a domestic at a neighbours house (regular occurrence - 3 times since Friday night ...). I was saying he was wasting his time as they would be friends again in the morning and then arguing again later that day. He agreed and said that in the last month he had both his car and motorbike stolen and was given a crime number and the brush off by his colleagues. He reckoned that was standard these days, even though every route out of town has cameras with ANPR on them, so could have been spotted somewhere.

tankplanker

2,479 posts

278 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
They caught the team of guys that stole my Golf R (and a few other cars same night), in my Golf R a few nights later while attempting to steal much more valuable cars about 20 miles away from me. The guys got between 3 and 5 years, though I'm expecting them to be out in half of that time. They had multiple offences of the same type (they stole at least 3 cars including mine on the same night, was a sizeable gang), and multiple types of offences.

They triggered the APNR and speed cameras along the route they took into central Birmingham. They then trashed the interior of the car looking for a tracker. They removed my owners club sticker and my PH sticker, changed the plates, then drove the knackers off it until they were caught.

Car was fked when it was recovered, needed new gearbox, engine rebuild (VW checked it over and voided the power train warranty), new front wing, at least one new alloy, 4 new tyres, etc. Didn't want it back, Insurance wouldn't write it off. Lucky for me the VW it was being looked at was broken into and the thieves stole the sat navs out of about 5 cars including mine by cutting up the dash. This then put it over into write off threshold. They never caught those thieves, even though it most likely had inside help.

No way did they get enough time for what they did, they'll be back out stealing large number of cars again in 18 months or so, too much easy money to be made. Completely put me off owning a similar car again.

AndyNetwork

1,831 posts

193 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Pica-Pica said:
Really? Locking him up will cost a helluva lot more to tax-payers.
How much does a 6x6 stone box cost with no entertainment, no exercise, and porridge for their 1 meal a day? Not as much as it currently costs to "Accommodate" prisoners. In fact, how many would you get in a shipping container, and send them out to sea?

Perhaps if it was the very basics then people would be less willing to go there, and therefore not commit the crimes. Not only this, but by the time they come out, they will be barely be able to walk, so less likely to be able to get into any more trouble.

To those who are going to say "What about human rights?" then rights should go out of the window as soon as you commit an imprisonable offence.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
The reasons prisons are full is because more people go to prison and for longer:

Some data from 2013 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...

If you want to see another large increase then there needs to be significant investment to increase the population size.

Terminator X said:
Slightly O/T but the whole sentencing "thing" gets my goat. If you get 12 months then serve it and out for good behavior. If you are "bad" whilst in there then you serve longer. All this serving 50% of time for good behavior is nuts to me.

TX.
No such thing as release for 'good behaviour' in the UK justice system.

Half in prison / half on licence is automatic.

AndyNetwork said:
Perhaps if it was the very basics then people would be less willing to go there, and therefore not commit the crimes.
A common but false belief is that harsh conditions prohibit crime.






Kawasicki

13,030 posts

234 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
Pica-Pica said:
Kawasicki said:
Seems unreasonably lenient.
Really? Locking him up will cost a helluva lot more to tax-payers. 12 months suspended sentence is no holiday, nor 150 hours unpaid community service, which will probably have to be completed by a certain date.
How about 1500 hours community service?

croyde

22,641 posts

229 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
My Vespa was found after a year of being not only stolen but used in other robberies.

The guy was charged. He had been sent to prison previously for 4 years for his part in armed robberies.

In this case he also got 12 months suspended and 150 hours community service.

Oh the lose of the bike cost me a couple of grand at least. He was told to pay me the grand sum of £15.

Funnily enough I'm still waiting.

Still I have my Vespa back, it's very bruised and battered and it tries to kill me every time I ride it as something is very bent.

Hopefully the next that steals it ends up under a tipper truck.

Awful injuries preferred.

otolith

55,794 posts

203 months

Tuesday 16th July 2019
quotequote all
La Liga said:
The reasons prisons are full is because more people go to prison and for longer:

Some data from 2013 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...

If you want to see another large increase then there needs to be significant investment to increase the population size.
Or a refocusing on who we are locking up, for how long, and why.

Some depressing numbers in here;

https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/whogoesto...

Something isn't working.

I don't think there are any simple solutions, and that anyone who says there are is either wrong or lying. And I think the doctrine of human rights makes it very difficult to deal with people who are - I'm not going to say "bad", I'm going to say "irreparably broken". We can't off them, or transport them, or lock them up indefinitely unless they do something really bad.

Given a free hand, I'd go for a series of enclosed communities with progressively more freedom and less surveillance, from high security prison at one end to something that resembles normality at the other, with convicts entering at an appropriate level for their offending, but capable of moving in either direction depending on their behaviour, and not coming out until they'd proved themselves capable of living like a decent human being in the least restrictive of them. Getting and keeping a job would be one of the criteria for moving down a level. Pie in the sky, though.