From the Offender's Mouth....
The following content has been taken from interviews conducted with convicted offenders, providing a useful insight into their approach to committing vehicle theft.
Vehicle Crime
We look for nice cars in decent areas, looking for stuff like sat-navs and iPods.
A lot of parcel shelves don’t fit right and there is sometimes a gap between the shelf and the back window…….you can sometimes see what might be a handle of a laptop bag or bag in the boot and you’d have a go at that.
We did a job on a car near ‘X’, took a bag from a car and it had £950 in it……who does that, leaves all that in a car?
We had some of those infra-red binoculars too, they’re worth around £500……we just do a 50/50 split.
If people had left the keys around then I’d go for the motor.
Some cars are taken by opportunists and others are on order…….the security is better on cars now, but the main reason why an offender wants the keys are that they are easier to sell if you have them
It is extremely important that people know how many clicks on their car key fob sets what level of security. On some vehicles clicking your key fob once will deadlock the car, set the alarm and activate internal sensors – clicking the key fob twice will deadlock the car, set the alarm, but it won’t activate the internal sensors and your alarm may not go off if a window is broken. This will vary depending on what vehicle you have, so double check in the details received with the car or with the manufacturer, and always ensure that your vehicle is secure on leaving it unoccupied by checking the door handle.