Section 1 extract from a 13/03/2019 submission to the West Midlands Police, their Police & Crime Commissioner and the Home Office, titled ‘U.K. VEHICLE THEFT Complacency‘. It appears all three authorities ‘filed the document on division’ – police parlance for ‘tossed it in the bin‘.
Getting to the core …
In or just before 2000, Kent Police launched ‘operation igneous’. Admittedly it was well-timed with the advent of transponder keys … car theft had reached 500,000 vehicles per annum and the casual ’joy’ ride was about to be struck a debilitating blow … you could no longer take a new car using a screwdriver, bent windscreen wiper arm (tool of choice in SE London) or even a slide-hammer – attack the ignition as much as you like, ‘hot-wiring’ was about to die on post- 2000 vehicles.
But ‘igneous’ was about more than this technology, they weeded out false reports … ‘no-crimed’ reports caused a fall in theft records. It was said that these measures resulted in a reduction in crime of over 20%. True, vehicle theft dropped … but fraud increased … and who cares about fraud?
I understand the Igneous team also had an ANPR fitted vehicle (Land Rover) which would patrol and run analysis of vehicle make, model, colour, tax valid etc. and effectively ‘score’ causing officers to stop and question vehicle occupants.
But, proactive investigation comes at a price and the operation, intended to be rolled out nationally, fell by the wayside. I believe some facets still have merit. I likely have a copy of the original ‘hand-out’*, I remember much of what was discussed and adopted as I changed our investigation recording processes to fit the model and the ‘CHASE’ mnemonic:
C – Car: Make, Model , Age, Value, Security, Likelihood of genuine report
H -History: Finance, Insurance, Documents, Keys, Servicing, Sale
A – Actions: What has been done so far and what do we do next
S – Scene: Of theft, Of recovery, Any other crimes before reported stolen.
E – Evidence: From Scene or Enquiries.
*I do, and much has been uploaded to these pages – some with restricted access.
More about Igneous can be found here.