Bulletguy Posted February 12, 2012 Author Share Posted February 12, 2012 Just had an email from a Spanish guy. Imagine our own Police making suggestions like this? people I talked to has had incidents where they were nearly robbed, but managed to speed away from them. Some criminals drive up alongside your car and try to make you stop, others try to act like an accident just happened on the road, and rob people? who stop to help. Police have all kinds of weird tips they give people. One tourist was told to buy an airsoft gun to scare the robbers off. If the police dont get enough evidence, most cases are dropped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Losos Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Bulletguy - 2012-02-12 5:25 PMSimply fleeing back to their own country would actually be the daftest thing any serious criminal could do as that would be the very first place Police would look! Very sorry but can't agree, when we had a robbery the police told us the villans were almost always Polish and they couldn't do anything, they also told us that every night Polish criminals are crossing the border with cars towing trailors and returning the same night loaded up with goods stolen within 20 miles of the border. The Police do random checks but are not supposed to routinely stop people from crossing from one country to another so they have given up. Crime is on the increase, no one gives dam, and I have yet to read of a court case in this country (Czechland) of Polish criminals, it just doesn't happen. But what the heck, the world is a nasty place, most people are evil, feel like topping myself sometimes with the laisse fair attitude to crime most people have. If it hasn't happened to them what do they care???? and no politician is going to try and reverse the Sheningen agreement that's for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tea Cup Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 terryW - 2012-02-04 5:22 PM I know when this thread started it concerned Spain but now it has strayed off all round the World I feel that adding France to the discussion may help others avoid what occurred on a French municipal camp site last summer. The site was surrounded by a well maintained fence but unsupervised pedestrian access was possible 24 hours a day. In one night 11 units were robbed, mostly through partially open windows, the fly screens were cut and nearby caravan steps used to gain height to reach into the units as the occupants slept. The other method was the screwdriver in the lock of a campervan while the campers slept in the awning. Not one of the occupants of the 11 units woke and by daylight, according to the local police, the thieves would have been well away from the area. If this was the one near Limoges - the numbers involved were the same - friends of mine were involved. They were asleep in their Bongo, roof up, the thieves slit the canvas and robbed them while they were asleep down below. The first they knew was when they awoke. Scary! You wonder if these are just stories, but it did actually happen. The police blamed itinerant workers from a nearby circus or fairground Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Tea Cup - 2012-02-13 9:39 PM terryW - 2012-02-04 5:22 PM I know when this thread started it concerned Spain but now it has strayed off all round the World I feel that adding France to the discussion may help others avoid what occurred on a French municipal camp site last summer. The site was surrounded by a well maintained fence but unsupervised pedestrian access was possible 24 hours a day. In one night 11 units were robbed, mostly through partially open windows, the fly screens were cut and nearby caravan steps used to gain height to reach into the units as the occupants slept. The other method was the screwdriver in the lock of a campervan while the campers slept in the awning. Not one of the occupants of the 11 units woke and by daylight, according to the local police, the thieves would have been well away from the area. If this was the one near Limoges - the numbers involved were the same - friends of mine were involved. They were asleep in their Bongo, roof up, the thieves slit the canvas and robbed them while they were asleep down below. The first they knew was when they awoke. Scary! You wonder if these are just stories, but it did actually happen. The police blamed itinerant workers from a nearby circus or fairground Similar incident concerned a friend of mine on Chartres campsite about 2 - 3 years ago. She was in a caravan and awoke to find all the stuff not wanted by the thieves had been dumped around her step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 So, it sounds as though in reality you're actually far more likely to get robbed in France than Spain - maybe we should re-title the thread....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 It is interesting, but probably understandable, that whatever country one visits, the robberies are invariably blamed upon itinerants, foreigners, or drug addicts. Who knows, it may even be true! :-) However, the idea that any nation's police force (let alone a severely economically strapped Spain) is going to saddle up its charger and canter off in hot pursuit of villains, who have stolen relatively small sums of money and/or and personal possessions, in the vicinity of a motorway network that allows them to be at least 50 miles distant (but in what direction?) by the time the police actually arrive, seems to me a bit of a fantasy. Comforting, maybe, as an idea; but realistically, how much resource is liable to be available for such activity? In UK, most people's experience of burglary is that relatively junior officers arrive after some delay, take notes, probably give a crime number to allow insurance to be pursued, possibly look for finger-prints, and that is that. They don't send the Flying Squad within minutes and set off hotfoot on the track of the robbers! If no-one is attacked, threatened or actually injured, the crime is treated as a nuisance and, if someone gets lucky some time later, and nabs a thief who is prepared to admit to a whole string of crimes in the locality, the police regard them all as closed, and the thief's "honesty" in owning up is taken into account in sentencing. Suppose BG had been subjected to the same con on the M6? What would have happened? Anything materially different? I rather think not. Had it happened in Germany, I think the police would at least have saluted him on arrival, but beyond that? :-) I think this unfortunately falls into the category, as that nice Mr Rumsfeld said, of "stuff happens"! They will probably get over confident at some stage or, from their point of view just get unlucky, and get nabbed. Short of that, or a police "sting" of some sort, it is rather difficult to see how they can be caught, which, sadly, is what the thieves already know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Losos Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Brian Kirby - 2012-02-14 12:47 Had it happened in Germany, I think the police would at least have saluted him on arrival, but beyond that? :-) Thank you Brian for putting a smile on my face this morning. I agree with everything you have written above, of course no Police man would jump into his BMW and chase off in all directions, not in Spain, France, UK, and cerainly not where I am at the moment !!! My main point in posting above was just to highlight that the odds seem (To me anyway) to have shifted somewhat in favour of these criminals with the ability to cross borders unhindered. I even said, but will repeat, that in the rare cases where the Police might come across a crime in progress and chase the suspects in hot pursuit, crossing the border is allowable (I hope!!) but how often does that happen, well we all know the answer to that one. As you rightly say occassionly the Police nab someone for something unrelated and he might 'admit' to a load of other crimes. I just wish that the punishment when such things come to court was greater than what it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Brian, the French police rounded up a large ring of about 50 "voleurs" in the south of France around the A9. I think it was last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 while waiting for a program to start, I caught the tail end of one of these many fly on the wall Cop TV programs the other night. they pulled two traveller women with two children in an estate car. the cops were terrified that the women had managed to call in the troops from the nearby traveller site. the back of car was full of bin liners stuffed with clothes from Lakeside shopping centre..the language was something to behold...rough isn't in it, more like sub human. I really dont know why the cops bother as when these things go to court, they hardly do anything to put them of repeat offending. in this case the kids took responsibility and were given a derisory fine while on a rant, another thing that gets me is even the kids have broad Irish accents (I'm Irish by the way) so do they just come here for the season to steal, pillage and fight and con our old folk and then return to their villages in Ireland? I know Irish law is much harsher and you cant squat on land....but it must be the benefit system that attracts them and the rich pickings as well.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Brian Kirby - 2012-02-14 11:47 AM Suppose BG had been subjected to the same con on the M6? What would have happened? Anything materially different? I rather think not. Glad you said 'suppose' Brian as the answer is there simply is no record of the same con occurring here on any of the motorways. Scoured the internet and found nothing relating to robberies taking place on the motorway hard shoulder. A cousin of mine spent his entire working life travelling the motorway network as Sales Director for Fissons, regularly covering up to 100k a year and never experienced a motorway robbery. Of course our motorway network is heavily monitored by CCTV......exactly how much and how far I don't know, but the chances of anything happening and being missed is virtually zero. We also have a proactive Police Force patrolling our motorways in both marked and unmarked vehicles. Locally we did have an incident some years ago where a biker was knocked off his motorbike by a foreign registered truck driver. The truck driver drove off no doubt believing he could escape, but unknown to him his truck had been caught on CCTV. He was arrested in France and brought back here to face prosecution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Bulletguy - 2012-02-14 5:20 PM Brian Kirby - 2012-02-14 11:47 AM Suppose BG had been subjected to the same con on the M6? What would have happened? Anything materially different? I rather think not. Glad you said 'suppose' Brian as the answer is there simply is no record of the same con occurring here on any of the motorways. Scoured the internet and found nothing relating to robberies taking place on the motorway hard shoulder. A cousin of mine spent his entire working life travelling the motorway network as Sales Director for Fissons, regularly covering up to 100k a year and never experienced a motorway robbery. Of course our motorway network is heavily monitored by CCTV......exactly how much and how far I don't know, but the chances of anything happening and being missed is virtually zero. We also have a proactive Police Force patrolling our motorways in both marked and unmarked vehicles. Locally we did have an incident some years ago where a biker was knocked off his motorbike by a foreign registered truck driver. The truck driver drove off no doubt believing he could escape, but unknown to him his truck had been caught on CCTV. He was arrested in France and brought back here to face prosecution. Sorry - but there in fact plenty of reports about people being robbed on UK motorways. Just one example: http://www.s1grangemouth.com/news/man-robbed-on-motorway-at-grangemouth.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 utter tosh BGD nothing like in comparison with northern Spain or certain areas of France *-) Anyway, while holidaymakers are: A stupid enough to stop B stupid enough to get out of vehicle C leave valuables on the seat or in clear view! these kind of thefts will continue...The mind boggles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Patricia - 2012-02-14 2:20 PM Brian, the French police rounded up a large ring of about 50 "voleurs" in the south of France around the A9. I think it was last year. Yes, I think I heard something to that effect, Patricia. However, wasn't it the case that they had been responsible for a large number of incidents, leading to a large number of complaints, so the police, in the end, were pushed to "do something about it"? My point was that in respect of individual crimes one is unlikely to see such concerted action. Doubtless if enough complaints about the Spanish (Barcelona?) gangs are logged, the authorities in Spain will also act. In fact, I think one lot has been bagged? We were in Athens in autumn 2010, and Carole's bag was "dipped" emerging from the metro. Fortunately it was almost immediately noticed, we stopped the cards within about 15 mins, and not much cash was involved. We made a police report and were told that Athens was knee-deep in gangs of Albanian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian pick-pockets. A gang of some 15 was already under arrest in the police station, and we went back to where we had emerged, and discreetly watched "our" gang operating for a few minutes. Very slick they were too, using (no doubt stolen) mobile phones to identify their targets, and silly questions to distract them. :-( Relevance? Just that as soon as one lot are picked up, another moves in. They are one of the side effects of mass tourism. There have always been robbers around roads and crowds, even when they were publicly hanged or deported, so I guess we just have to live with them and try to be aware and alert, or stay at home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob b Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 If the police won't chase the criminals, why not attract them to the crime hot spots using 'Q ships'. By that I mean a motorhome with members of the countries finest hidden inside.Some of our police forces do this with houses set up in prime locations. The blighters break in and nick a laptop with sprays them with Smart Water as they pick it up. They are also captured on film as well. It seems to be the same old faces the police pick up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Bulletguy - 2012-02-14 5:20 PM Brian Kirby - 2012-02-14 11:47 AM Suppose BG had been subjected to the same con on the M6? What would have happened? Anything materially different? I rather think not. Glad you said 'suppose' Brian as the answer is there simply is no record of the same con occurring here on any of the motorways. ........................... But, my (hypothetical) point was how the UK police might have responded, compared to the Spanish police, in pursuing your thieves, not whether folk actually get robbed on UK motorways. You may well believe they are omnipresent, but I'm afraid I don't. Now, if you are right to place that much confidence in how they would perform were you to suffer the same fate in the UK as you suffered in Spain, they will indeed, arrive in the twinkling of an eye, and then blast off in hot pursuit. On the other hand, if my more jaundiced - and I would say realistic - view is right, you will be robbed, they will take up to an hour to arrive, and the robbers will be long gone. You may have a reg no, but the car will almost certainly be stolen, and they will have gone where? Your only advantage would be that you and the police share a common language. So, my expectation of the outcome is that under similar circumstances, it would be much the same. For what it is worth, my personal view is that you would be wiser to shift your expectations towards my less rosy view of what is practical in this country, and away from your rather cosy view, and then take that mindset everywhere with you. But then, that is me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 BGD - 2012-02-14 5:49 PM Sorry - but there in fact plenty of reports about people being robbed on UK motorways. Just one example: http://www.s1grangemouth.com/news/man-robbed-on-motorway-at-grangemouth.html So that's one Bruce....where is the 'plenty'? Pity there was no year date on the article either. Meanwhile here is some more experiences of Autopista robberies. http://www.absolutespainforum.com/general-discussion/3082-robbed-again.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 bob b - 2012-02-14 6:32 PM If the police won't chase the criminals, why not attract them to the crime hot spots using 'Q ships'. By that I mean a motorhome with members of the countries finest hidden inside. Some of our police forces do this with houses set up in prime locations. Perfectly achievable and undoubtedly would prove effective. The only problem would be justifying the cost to the authorities. On the subject of costs, at the Autopista Service area where I pulled off after being robbed, there was around half a dozen Police vehicles and God knows how many Officers sitting around doing the spot checks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Brian Kirby - 2012-02-14 8:07 PM But, my (hypothetical) point was how the UK police might have responded, compared to the Spanish police, in pursuing your thieves, not whether folk actually get robbed on UK motorways. You may well believe they are omnipresent, but I'm afraid I don't. I understood your hypothesis Brian. In short I guess the answer would be one of total astonishment and utter disbelief due to how few cases we have logged of motorway robberies in the UK. Incidentally whilst watching a documentary on television earlier this evening there was a discussion on CCTV in the UK. The ratio is quite staggering. 14 to 1........one CCTV for every fourteen people in the UK. And now they are looking to digitise the entire network with even higher spec cameras. Add all this to the access we have with the NSA facility which has the ability to read and locate any vehicle registration plate.....anywhere in the world.........the mind boggles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Losos Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Brian Kirby - 2012-02-14 9:07 PM You may well believe they are omnipresent, but I'm afraid I don't. Neither do I Brian ! I've never felt that the Police presence anywhere has been at a level I would like and it's getting worse not better. As you said in a previous post we are being conditioned to just 'accept' these low level crimes, but I never will as long as I live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nowtelse2do Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Just found this on a Jag forum. It happened just over two year ago but shows that cars are targeted also. Posted on the 7th Sep 2011 it reads. :- Avoid Barcelona! Two year ago my rear tyre was punctured at traffic lights by a youth on a scooter, he then drew my attention to it at the next set of lights and beckoned me to follow him, indicating he would 'Help Me'. Yeh......Take me to his gang who would no doubt 'Help' themselves to my valuables! I declined his 'Help' The Bas***d's !! This post was in response to someone who said that this type of robbery did not happen or was very rare, then the thread livened up a bit. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 I have received a further two letters from Bill Cash MP today. one enclosing a letter from the Foreign Office, the second in reply to suggestions I put forward to him. Mr Lidington MP writing from the Foreign Office explains that I should 'complete the attached form and email it to the Directorate-General of Police.' Quite what he means by that I do not know as there was no 'attached form' enclosed. First letter is from Bill Cash http://i44.tinypic.com/33wxl3o.jpg Foreign Office http://i41.tinypic.com/35ic47t.jpg Second letter from Bill Cash http://i39.tinypic.com/4rf8k9.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Hi BG I think that you may need to contact Bill Cash. As David Lidington's letter was sent to him, it would appear Bill Cash has only forwarded the letter without the attachment (?) (?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Losos Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Lots of hand wringing, shock horror remarks, referals to other departments, claims of past arrests (and let us hope to God some long prison sentances) and most significantly admittance that the problem (Like so many in the world of crime) has barely been addressed. I'm really getting fed up by these idiots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnP Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Patricia - Ten of us where done over in one night at the Chartres site in June 2011. A mix of caravans, motorhomes and tents. So much so that the CC have put a warning about the site in this years Continental Site Book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 flicka - 2012-02-24 9:53 PM Hi BG I think that you may need to contact Bill Cash. As David Lidington's letter was sent to him, it would appear Bill Cash has only forwarded the letter without the attachment (?) (?) Hi Flicka Yes I did wonder! I've written back to Bill Cash asking him what/where this 'attached form' is? Mr Lidington goes on to say that "the Spanish Ambassador has raised the matter with senior Mossos d'Esquadra officials and local politicians and will continue to do so". Interesting to see also that the Foreign Office is all too aware of the rise of 'distraction thefts' carried out in Spain. I also read in that link where British nationals make over 12 million visits to Spain each year (source: Instituto de Estudios Turísticos), making it one of the most-visited countries by Britons in the world. Twelve million accounts for one hell of a lot of tourist revenue which you would think would motivate the Spanish authorities and Police to crack down hard on crime and take a more proactive stance. They also need to come to terms with the fact they need to openly publicise crime 'hot spot' areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.