Car is stolen twice
A BURGLARY victim whose £40,000 car was stolen at knifepoint was shocked to discover it had been stolen again after it had been recovered by police.
Phil Chambers, 30, and fiancée Charlotte Gill, 28, from Bitteswell, near Lutterworth, were woken with a start in the early hours of the morning when two armed robbers kicked down their front door and demanded he hand over the keys to his Audi RS3 parked outside.
The terrified couple handed them over and the businessman’s luxury car was driven away, with a third man following in a separate vehicle.
The vehicle was recovered hours later but, it later emerged, the same gang stole it a second time from a “secure” compound just hours later.
Phil said: “We were asleep – my fiancée and I – when they just kicked in the front door and came up the stairs shouting ‘Get the keys! Give us the keys! You know why we’re here’.
“It was like something out of a nightmare.”
The thugs threatened to stab Phil as he desperately fumbled through his belongings to try to find the keys.
The incident happened shortly after midnight on December 19. At about 8.30am the same day, a shaken Mr Chambers was informed by police that the car had been recovered in Coventry.
He has since received an apology from West Midlands Police after it emerged that his Audi RS3 was stolen again that evening, this time from a secure police compound, by the same criminals, who rammed their way through the gates of the recovery yard using another stolen car. It was a chief inspector who called Phil to inform him of the incident. “He was obviously embarrassed and very apologetic,” he said. “I told him ‘this has turned into a bloody joke, hasn’t it?’ The poor bloke didn’t know what to say. “Basically, these blaggers had gone to the recovery yard and nicked my car at the second attempt from under police’s noses. “We know it was the same people as they used the keys they still had from the Audi to drive it away again. “It happened at about 9.40pm that evening but I didn’t learn about it until Christmas Eve. I just can’t believe it.”
“To add insult to injury there were Christmas presents in the boot, which they nicked as well.
“I’m furious but at least Charlotte and I are in one piece.”
Phil believes the robbers dumped the car in the first instance after it ran out of petrol and then waited for the police to tow it to the yard before breaking in with a can of petrol.
West Midlands Police said investigations are continuing into identifying and apprehending the criminals, and recover the car, with help from their counterparts in Leicestershire. A spokesman said: “We were called just before 9.40pm on December 19 after a Nissan Micra was used to ram a gate at a compound. An Audi was then stolen from the compound and the thieves abandoned the Micra.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact either force on the police 101 number, or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
These blaggers had gone to the recovery yard and nicked my car from under police’s noses Phil Chambers