CCTV and electric gates are useless. They don’ t care if you – or your children – are at home. A terrifying dispatch from a wealthy suburb under siege from the new breed of spree burglars
The household security industry has been enjoying a brisk trade in the exclusive gated community of Manor Park, Chislehurst, this week.
On the driveways of detached houses that sell for up to £2 million, residents could be seen in deep conversation with experts about new locks, alarms and CCTV cameras, or consulting neighbours who are already equipped with the latest anti-theft devices.
Chislehurst, a leafy corner of the South-east London stockbroker belt bordering Kent, is in the grip of so-called ‘spree burglary’ — brazen lightning raids on tightly focused areas by ruthless, professional gangs prepared to threaten even the very young and the elderly with violence.
Danny Beacham, a resident of Manor Park for 18 years, was having his CCTV extended to cover the approach to his home and the entrance to a neighbouring road.
‘everyone is on their toes,’ he says. ‘There is an online group for worried residents, and we are thinking of employing a private security touch. According to Superintendent Sean firm to mount patrols.’ Wilson, lead officer for burglary at Scotland In the first two months of this year, there Yard, the gangs monitor social media websites were 38 burglaries in Chislehurst, some of them to identify their targets, watching out for people truly terrifying, as testified by the CCTV footage flaunting their latest purchases online. released by police last week in an attempt ‘These are people coming here with very little to identify the gang responsible for a number money,’ Supt Wilson says. ‘They will have no of violent break-ins. hesitation in bedding down in a room with ten The modus operandi — meticulously planned or 15 other people for two or three months. They and swiftly executed operations — are a far cry stop in one area then move on [to the next].
from the opportunist break-ins of lone burglars ‘Some will come from within the UK, some with which we are already familiar. from overseas — eastern europe for example Police believe gangs of varying nationalities — but also South America. We also have are involved, but others in nearby Bromley and travelling communities involved.’
beyond may involve eastern european, or even No doubt the UK’s appalling clear-up rate for South American, gangs tempted by rich burglary acts as an incentive, too. Out of pickings in a country they regard as a soft 261,965 domestic burglary offences last year, just one in ten was solved, according to current statistics.
And a recent spike in burglaries — up 32 per cent year on year — has led to a surge in the number of Neighbourhood Watch schemes.
Police blame the fall in detection rates on a cut of 17,000 in police numbers, with the chief of Britain’s second-largest force, West Midlands, claiming that budget issues are affecting its investigation of burglaries.
householders, however, point to the near invisibility of police on the nation’s residential streets and the downgrading of burglary as a crime.
New guidelines for the Met published last October stipulate that burglaries should be probed only if the perpetrators use violence or trick their way in to a property, while crimes involving a loss of under £50 should not be investigated at all unless there is an identified suspect.
In Chislehurst, if ever there was a time for an emphatic police presence it is now. The fear and apprehension is palpable in the private roads that border the smart homes of City commuters and wealthy retirees.
One of the latter who has lived in the area for 30 years admits that his wife is reluctant to venture out of their house, but will also no longer stay at home alone. And why would she, when the threat in this normally private and tranquil world is now
within the home? Worst-hit in Manor Park is the culdesac of Cookham Dene Close, effectively a gated community within a private road. Cameras and electrified gates testify to its residents’ fears — but they are no deterrent.
The owner of a £1.8 million house that was burgled on February 9 says her daughter narrowly avoided the marauding gang responsible.
‘My daughter won’t stay in on her own now,’ says the mother of two. ‘We are just thankful she didn’t come home as planned that night.’
The woman, a company director who does not wish to be named, says the gang knew exactly what they were doing.
‘It’s all calculated. They knew what they wanted,’ she says. ‘The burglars had a very distinctive Irish accent.’
The break- in at the house was recorded on CCTV. It shows one of the intruders hiding in a bush in the close. A second man then joins him in smashing open a gate before two other men arrive. All are stocky and in their 20s.
They wear baseball caps, scarves to hide their faces, puffer jackets, gloves and Converse trainers. A fifth man sits in a car nearby acting as look-out.
‘The guys walked in through the gate and hid in the bush — they were looking for movement within the close,’ the woman says. ‘My husband and I walked out and got in the car and left and they saw us.
‘It was six or seven minutes after we left that the house was burgled.’
CCTV footage from inside the property shows how the masked men used an axe to smash open glass doors at the rear of the building. During the raid, which lasted just 18 minutes, the men took ‘everything they could lay their hands on’.
A safe was raided and designer watches, jewellery, handbags, coats and even jeans and shoes were stuffed into bags and pillow cases torn from beds.
‘Our alarm wasn’t on because our daughter was due home any moment,’ says the woman.
‘My husband and I only went around the corner to the pub. I am so thankful she didn’t come home.’ The family’s small dog hid. The victim says she and her husband were amazed at how quickly the gang managed to gain entry, adding: ‘We were shocked how easy it was.’
She says she later received an email from Robert Neill, Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, informing her that the gang were most likely Irish travellers, and that a gang from Chile was also operating in Bromley, the latter suspected of some 50 break-ins in recent months.
Bromley is the burglary black-spot of South-east London, suffering 413 domestic break- ins in January and February.
The gang returned to the house in Cookham Dene Close a month later on March 5, but were disturbed while attempting to break into the garden.
That same night, they raided a second house in the close, smashing their way in via glass rear doors with a sledgehammer.
This time, an 11-year-old boy and his 14- year- old sister were at home, together with their grandparents who were babysitting.
The intruders banged a crowbar and the hammer against door frames and furniture to intimidate the family telling them: ‘We will hurt you if you do not stay still.’
The children were then dragged around the £1.4 million, five-bedroom property as the burglars demanded to know the whereabouts of valuables.
Their 81-year- old grandfather and grandmother, 79, were sprayed in the face with what they feared was a corrosive substance, though it turned out to be harmless.
The gang, again wearing their trademark Converse footwear, can be seen on CCTV using torches to search drawers before leaving with bulging holdalls and plastic bags. Only eight minutes elapsed from start to finish.
During the raid, the children’s father, a doctor, was telephoned by his panic-stricken mother. his son had managed to smuggle a phone to his grandmother as the gang searched the house.
‘We think they had seen my son playing his computer games in his room,’ the doctor says. ‘My mum managed to phone the police — the thieves knew that a call had gone out, so were not here long.
‘When I received the call, I was terrified. I could not think straight. I did not know what to expect.
‘My daughter heard them come in and hid in a bathroom, but they unlocked it from the outside and took her round the house asking her to point out where the valuables were.’
Last night, police said they still had not caught any of the perpetrators.
The same gang may also be responsible for a burglary in nearby Keston on February 21, in which a safe containing watches and jewellery
‘My daughter won’t stay in on her own now’ Thieves sounded their car horn to taunt residents
was taken. Of course, the utterly brazen nature of the attacks is disturbing. In another case, a gang removed the front door of a target property even though it was overlooked by other homes.
In yet another incident, burglars returned to the house they had raided earlier in the evening and taunted residents gathered out - side by sounding their car’s horn. Chislehurst, with its duck pond and smart High Street, is not far from the less salubrious Hither Green, where, earlier this month, burglar Henry Vincent was fatally stabbed during a raid on the home of pensioner Richard Osborn-Brooks and his wife.
Last week, residents repeatedly tore down floral tributes to Vincent placed near the scene of his death by family and friends, reportedly from the travelling community.
Mr Osborn-Brooks, 78, and his wife, who has dementia, have been driven into hiding following threats, their home now boarded up with security grilles and fitted with smoke alarms because of fears it may be burned down.
Katy Boughey, a councillor who represents Chislehurst on Bromley council, says the police and local authority are working to combat spree burglary, with specific police operations in progress in South-East London, although she declined to give details. ‘This has been quite frightening ,’ she says. ‘ We are trying our best, but sometimes the thieves are on the front foot.’
According to police, spree burglars will travel the country looking for targets — secluded houses in wealthy areas — and use cars equipped with false number plates to evade detection.
Europol, the European Union ’s law enforcement agency , has recently warned of the growing problem of rogue Eastern Euro - pean crime groups, who typically target a region for a short time before moving on.
Mobility is a key feature of their operations. In 2016, a Lithuanian gang was jailed for a total of 35 years for 120 burglaries in Derby - shire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, North W ales and Staffordshire, which had netted them more than £300,000 in cash and valuables.
Police stress that although burglary rates have risen over the past 18 months after years of decline, they remain far below those of the mid-Nineties.
They also insist they are arresting suspects in ‘record numbers’ as they use extra patrols, specialist detectives and undercover operations to track down criminals.
Such claims are hard to swallow for those victims of burglary whose homes and lives have been violated, their families threatened and peace of mind destroyed.
And the suggestion by police that householders can be their own worst enemies, advertising the presence of valuables on social media and even in what they leave out for refuse collection, is surely rubbing salt in the wound.
But police have a point about householders sometimes making it too easy . Constable Simon Nolan, who is based in Chisle - hurst, says burglars often return to the scene of the crime within a few weeks because they know the house and its security system.
‘People will also have replaced the stolen stuff by then,’ Mr Nolan says. ‘They’ll even put the boxes for their new TV outside the front of the house [for recycling].
‘[ The gangs] are targeting certain areas, the smarter roads because the dividends are higher if they do get into the house. This spate has caught a lot of people out — it is a bit of a wake-up call.
‘We are still amazed at the level of complacency [of homeowners]. In one case, we got to a house within 24 hours of a burglary and the keys were in the front door!
‘It scares people, and it should, but it’s rare for burglars to target houses when people are in.’
That may be so, but if you are the person sitting in your living room when the French windows disintegrate in a shower of glass, rarity will be of little comfort.