Search for ‘lost cat’ distraction burglars
Images of suspects after OAPs targeted
A WOMAN who claims to be looking for a lost cat is at large trying to trick her way into elderly people’s homes.
Police have issued these two pictures after having two suspected distraction burglaries in Havant and one burglary in Portsmouth in which £300 was stolen reported to them.
A police spokeswoman said that at about 1.15pm on Tuesday, a woman knocked on the door of a home in Eastleigh Road, Havant, and told the occupants, a man and a woman in their 80s, that she was looking for her cat.
‘She encouraged the occupants to leave the property and enter the garden in an attempt to help her while a man entered the house and attempted to steal items from inside,’ said the spokeswoman.
‘We received a second report that on the same day between 1pm and 2pm a woman had knocked on the door of an address on Hallett Road and told the occupant, a lady in her 70s, that she was looking for her cat.’ Police say nothing was taken on either occasion – but that a similar incident was reported on the same day in Portsmouth.
Between 10.30am and 10.45am, a woman knocked on the door of an address on Bucklers Court and told the occupant, a woman in her 70s, that she had lost her cat and asked if she could look in her garden.
The occupant of the address allowed the lady to look for the cat in her garden.
On Wednesday she noticed that about £300 in cash and some high value jewellery had been taken from inside her address.
Officers think the incidents are linked, and say they want to speak to these two people, who were seen in Eastleigh Road at the time of the first incident.
Anyone who recognises these people, or has any information that may help police, is asked to call 101 quoting 44220162902.