Stolen gear, Airdrie area (near Glasgow)

[geoham]

5 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

The police are woefully underfunded and understaffed. (We voted for this folks, so we can’t complain).

I was once mugged at knifepoint (I was very drunk and it was all very odd) but they picked up the guy in days, prosecuted him and he was jailed. 

In an ideal world all crimes would be investigated, but a low-value theft isn’t going to be particularly high up on the pecking order.

A flat I rented was broken into once and the police report was treated as merely a formality I went though before calling the insurance company to get my claim started. Today if my house were broken into I’d assume the case would be the same.

I do feel underfunding and understaffing is at the heart of this, though I do feel that ignoring things like this is short sighted. I suspect that others have suffered at the hands on the same criminals - I doubt my car was the first or last they've stolen from. I've no real desire to see some young opportunist thrown in jail and come out worse on the other side, but at the same time simply ignoring crime is only going to encourage it.

George

[geoham]

17 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

We had 10 guitars nicked from our house in Stoke about 15 years ago. The police were great, fingerprinted absolutely everything in the house, there must have been 5 officers there, god knows how much that cost. Never heard from them again. Weird!

The single cop dealing with my case said, entirely unprompted - "We're not going to fingerprint the guitar. It's not like the telly"

[fleabag]

When my van got broken into and  radio + a few  insignificant tools stolen, i called the police and needn't have bothered.

They weren't the least bit interested.  I said what about fingerprints.  They pointed out that it had been raining so there wouldnt be any.

I said it was only raining on the outside, not inside my van.   And that was that.  Nothing.

That was 30 years ago , and it doesnt seem like much has changed , for some.

I rarely bother calling them anymore.

[cheddatom]

Just now, geoham said:

The single cop dealing with my case said, entirely unprompted - "We're not going to fingerprint the guitar. It's not like the telly"

I know it's not funny but that really made me laugh

I was very lucky in that an addict walking past asked me what had happened to my door. I explained I'd had a few guitars nicked. He said he'd ask around, and then half an hour later lead me to a house with 8 of the 10 guitars in it in exchange for £50. I still miss my Aria Pro II hollow body 335 alike though

[mcnach]

5 hours ago, lou24d53 said:

Some people have baws of steel...!!

 

Proper bampots, those two were.

 

[mcnach]

For balance...

Years ago, we had a band rehearsal space within the grounds of a local storage company. It was great, after 5pm we could go there and make as much noise as we liked. There was CCTV, two locks... it felt safe.

Until the day we show up and EVERYTHING was gone. The CCTV cameras? "oh, they are not working". I felt the thieves knew it because they much have come with a large vehicle, and were probably connected to someone in that place... but could never prove anything.

We reported it. An officer was assigned to the case who was a guitar player himself. It was very useful as he knew exactly what our gear was worth. He also had a good list of people and shops to check. We gave him all the photographs we could, serial numbers when known etc. He said our stuff would probably show up within a couple of weeks, and if it didn't... then the chances were slim.

Six month slater we got a call. They got EVERYTHING back. Well, except for the footswitch for my Laney VC50 amplifier. They took two guitar amplifiers I had in that place. I was very pleased to get them back, although by then the band was no longer, as some of us could not afford new equipment and had moved on. Pity.

 

[geoham]

WOO HOO! 

I now have the bass back! It still has the cables and strap that were in the gig bag too. It did take an email from my MSP to help move things along, though I was mostly raising concerns about police funding and restructure making the cops' job difficult.

I now also have twins.... (kind of)

[Angelus]

Fantastic news, glad you've got something back. 👍

BTW, who's your MSP? I know one who plays in a covers band and is local ( Motherwell ).

[geoham]

1 minute ago, Angelus said:

Fantastic news, glad you've got something back. 👍

BTW, who's your MSP? I know one who plays in a covers band and is local ( Motherwell ).

It's Alex Neil. I suspect he doesn't play in a metal band, but would LOVE to be proven wrong, it'd change my whole perception of him!

[Angelus]

Almost him, I know Pauline McNeil plays in MC4 and was due to watch her play at Girdwoods in Wishaw, until lockdown happened.

[geoham]

8 minutes ago, Angelus said:

Almost him, I know Pauline McNeil plays in MC4 and was due to watch her play at Girdwoods in Wishaw, until lockdown happened.

I'm sure I read metal band... must be getting old.

I've seen MC4, they were double booked with my covers band to play O'Neills in Glasgow last year. They ended up getting the gig, but I went along to see the gig anyway. They're quite good, I had no idea the singer was a politician.

George

[dmccombe7]

Great news you finally have it returned to its rightful home. Finally a success story to cheer us all up a bit.

Dave

[xgsjx]

Good to hear it’s back. Hopefully you get the other bits back & the thief gets a bad bout of COVID. 

[stewblack]

On 28/07/2020 at 15:12, geoham said:

I do feel underfunding and understaffing is at the heart of this, though I do feel that ignoring things like this is short sighted. I suspect that others have suffered at the hands on the same criminals - I doubt my car was the first or last they've stolen from. I've no real desire to see some young opportunist thrown in jail and come out worse on the other side, but at the same time simply ignoring crime is only going to encourage it.

George

But there's the rub. The police themselves probably feel exactly the same as you do. 

But what can they do if they're understaffed or underfunded?

 

[dmccombe7]

I have some sympathy for Police being understaffed and underfunded but when they are called to an incident or even a minor  road accident they swamp the scene with police vehicles and most of them tend to be hanging around. I find that an over use of manning.

I'm a big fan of our emergency services and i have and always have done had a huge respect for what they do but sometimes i do wonder about how they respond to incidents. 

Even on Traffic Police on TV they do tend to over-man some minor incidents. Not saying every time but quite a few. 

What makes it infuriating and the officers must feel the same is when they have numerous cars and officers chasing a suspect, catching them and they get off with it in court. That annoys the hell out of me.

Dave

 

[geoham]

14 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

I have some sympathy for Police being understaffed and underfunded but when they are called to an incident or even a minor  road accident they swamp the scene with police vehicles and most of them tend to be hanging around. I find that an over use of manning.

I'm a big fan of our emergency services and i have and always have done had a huge respect for what they do but sometimes i do wonder about how they respond to incidents. 

Even on Traffic Police on TV they do tend to over-man some minor incidents. Not saying every time but quite a few. 

What makes it infuriating and the officers must feel the same is when they have numerous cars and officers chasing a suspect, catching them and they get off with it in court. That annoys the hell out of me.

Dave

 

I tend to agree - it's not unusual to see a van load of cops attend to a drunken fight outside a bars in Glasgow for example.

I had an interesting chat with the two cops who recovered my bass. I made it clear that my complaint to the MSP wasn't directed at them personally, but at their overall process. They were saying they were 'response cops', and spend the bulk of their time attending to calls that come via radio - and that they weren't ideally placed to investigate crimes. Which begs the question - why was it assigned to them in the first place?

The getting off with it part annoys the hell out of me too. They've more or less said that nobody will be getting prosecuted for this. They can't prove the person who sold it to Cash Generator stole it themselves, or even knew it was stolen. Even though I provided my local Cash Generator with the description and serial number of the bass at the time of the theft and then they bought it anyway - they've done nothing wrong unless I can prove the person who completed the sale was aware the bass was stolen. Unless the thief owns up or someone actually saw them taking the bass from my car, they won't pursue theft charges. Reset (aka handling stolen goods) requires you to prove they had knowledge that it was stolen. Claiming they bought it from a stranger in a pub would be enough to evade any charges at all.

It's really frustrating, but I get their point - what's the point of spending time on it if it's ultimately thrown out by a court?

George

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, geoham said:

I tend to agree - it's not unusual to see a van load of cops attend to a drunken fight outside a bars in Glasgow for example.

I had an interesting chat with the two cops who recovered my bass. I made it clear that my complaint to the MSP wasn't directed at them personally, but at their overall process. They were saying they were 'response cops', and spend the bulk of their time attending to calls that come via radio - and that they weren't ideally placed to investigate crimes. Which begs the question - why was it assigned to them in the first place?

The getting off with it part annoys the hell out of me too. They've more or less said that nobody will be getting prosecuted for this. They can't prove the person who sold it to Cash Generator stole it themselves, or even knew it was stolen. Even though I provided my local Cash Generator with the description and serial number of the bass at the time of the theft and then they bought it anyway - they've done nothing wrong unless I can prove the person who completed the sale was aware the bass was stolen. Unless the thief owns up or someone actually saw them taking the bass from my car, they won't pursue theft charges. Reset (aka handling stolen goods) requires you to prove they had knowledge that it was stolen. Claiming they bought it from a stranger in a pub would be enough to evade any charges at all.

It's really frustrating, but I get their point - what's the point of spending time on it if it's ultimately thrown out by a court?

George

That just angers me and leads thieves to simply take the P and carry on committing crime and no-one bothers or cares. Will that lead to people asking why have police at all. ? or even courts ?

Dave

[T-Bay]

8 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

That just angers me and leads thieves to simply take the P and carry on committing crime and no-one bothers or cares. Will that lead to people asking why have police at all. ? or even courts ?

Dave

And the scrotes know everything aspect of the law, and if they don’t their solicitor will tell them. My Nephew is a lawyer for criminal cases, I have had a few discussions with him and asked how he deals with people he knows are guilty and he says he will still try and get them off as it’s his ‘job to do so’. I asked what he would do if it was a rape or murder and he knew they were guilty and he said he would do the same - try every trick to get them off as they are his client. How the hell you sleep at night knowing you are letting a guilty person like that walk the streets to potentially do it again I will never know. He reckons he knows 99% of the time whether they really did it or not.

[lou24d53]

I had cause last year to contact the police, long story, but we suspect a break in during a family weekend away in Ayrshire. It was my sons birthday and only when we came back, we counted at least £300 missing, including my sons Birthday money all the family had given him.

We contacted the police in Troon where we had been staying. They however passed it across to the local Motherwell police, who then came and visited me at home.

A Male and Female officer attended, didn't know anything about the case, the female officer couldn't be nicer, asking what happened, where, when etc., but the - we'll call him - mouth, immediately piped up to his colleague, bold as brass in front of me... "this happened in Troon, why are we dealing with it?"... I was aghast...I get his point, but really, bring it up in the car..I was livid, I was nearly going to just throw the mouthy one out my house there and then, only refrained to get the report filed for the insurance claim...which, incidentally, only returned £50...🙈 😤

[dmccombe7]

3 hours ago, T-Bay said:

And the scrotes know everything aspect of the law, and if they don’t their solicitor will tell them. My Nephew is a lawyer for criminal cases, I have had a few discussions with him and asked how he deals with people he knows are guilty and he says he will still try and get them off as it’s his ‘job to do so’. I asked what he would do if it was a rape or murder and he knew they were guilty and he said he would do the same - try every trick to get them off as they are his client. How the hell you sleep at night knowing you are letting a guilty person like that walk the streets to potentially do it again I will never know. He reckons he knows 99% of the time whether they really did it or not.

I just couldn't do that job.  

52 minutes ago, lou24d53 said:

I had cause last year to contact the police, long story, but we suspect a break in during a family weekend away in Ayrshire. It was my sons birthday and only when we came back, we counted at least £300 missing, including my sons Birthday money all the family had given him.

We contacted the police in Troon where we had been staying. They however passed it across to the local Motherwell police, who then came and visited me at home.

A Male and Female officer attended, didn't know anything about the case, the female officer couldn't be nicer, asking what happened, where, when etc., but the - we'll call him - mouth, immediately piped up to his colleague, bold as brass in front of me... "this happened in Troon, why are we dealing with it?"... I was aghast...I get his point, but really, bring it up in the car..I was livid, I was nearly going to just throw the mouthy one out my house there and then, only refrained to get the report filed for the insurance claim...which, incidentally, only returned £50...🙈 😤

He could have been a bit more diplomatic about it and maybe say he was surprised that it had been passed to them. I'm guessing both forces knew they wouldn't be doing anything about it and it was just a formality for insurance claim.

Sad that we have reached that state of affairs.

Dave

[taunton-hobbit]

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

sad that we have reached that state of affairs.

Nothing new - I was written off by some idiot kid on Exmoor in 2005,

it took a lot of effort to get plod to even give it an incident number............

😎

[kodiakblair]

36 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

Nothing new - I was written off by some idiot kid on Exmoor in 2005,

it took a lot of effort to get plod to even give it an incident number............

😎

One Sunday afternoon some old fella jumped a junction and rammed me off the A1.  You can see by the damage  I was right in front of him.

 

Police never even asked for roadside breath tests. 

[dmccombe7]

42 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

One Sunday afternoon some old fella jumped a junction and rammed me off the A1.  You can see by the damage  I was right in front of him.

 

Police never even asked for roadside breath tests. 

If you had lost control and hit a police vehicle they would be all over you like a cheap suit. When my brother first started driving late 70's he had a Humber Sceptre and was following a police Sherpa van into the street where we lived. The van slammed on his brakes and my brother stopped behind him. He put the van in reverse and straight into my brother causing a fair bit of damage where the step went thru the front grill and burst radiator. Within minutes the street was swarming with police cars literally 6-8 different police cars. They then said at the scene that my brother ran into back of him but the young officer driving said it was his fault for not looking behind. If it wasn't for him they were gonna set up my brother for the blame.

My point being if you hit a police car there always seems to plenty officers available for that.

Dave