A porch pirate nabbed every parcel in our street - then police swooped on our neighbour and you'll never guess what happened next: TOM UTLEY
There was a time last year when we had to be double quick to pick up any parcels left on our doorsteps by delivery drivers. If they remained there for more than a few minutes, there was a high probability that someone would swipe them – and if we were out for any length of time, that probability would turn into something approaching a certainty.
Indeed, the WhatsApp group set up for residents of our south London street would ping day after day with reports of yet another theft by our local porch pirate – a neighbour we suspected of looking out for delivery vans, and then strolling along the road to scoop up any parcels left uncollected when it had gone.
But then abruptly, last autumn, the torrent of reports dried up.
True, most of us had stepped up our precautions. Many, like me, had invested in video doorbells, while our WhatsApp group constantly pinged with urgent requests to kind neighbours, begging them to take in parcels until their rightful owners were able to collect them.
But these measures alone couldn’t explain why the spate of thefts from our doorsteps had suddenly slowed from two or three each week to none.
The answer to that soon became apparent, however, when news spread that the one-man crime wave responsible for the thefts had at last been arrested, thanks to the efforts of public-spirited neighbours who had collected such a wealth of evidence against him that the police could no longer ignore it.
I’m told that in court, he admitted to some seven charges of burglary and theft, although the abrupt end of our crime wave suggests he may have been guilty of a great many more than that.
The last I heard, he had skipped bail before a hearing fixed for July this year. I don’t know what has happened to him since.
Perhaps he has been re-arrested and locked up – although I find that unlikely, in this age when few crimes less grievous than serial murder or rape seem to be punished with custodial sentences (and even those offenders thrown behind bars have a fair chance of being released by accident!).
If he is still at liberty, I dare say he is inflicting his mini crime-wave on some other locality.
All I can say for sure is that, for the time being at least, he appears to be leaving our street alone. Long may this last. Of course, other neighbourhoods in the capital have been much less fortunate.
Meanwhile, figures published this week suggest that in the country as a whole, almost five million households fell victim to porch piracy last year alone, with the value of parcels stolen amounting to a marmalade-dropping £666 million.
Analysts say the number of thefts equates to a year-on-year increase of no less than 31 per cent. What’s more, that five million figure – obtained from 27 UK police forces by the security firm Quadient – is almost certainly a considerable underestimate, since so few people actually report missing deliveries to the police.
You can’t really blame those who don’t bother, I suppose, since it’s so much less trouble simply to claim a refund, while in the vast majority of cases, the chances that the police will do anything beyond issuing a crime number hover somewhere between insignificant and non-existent.
Figures published this week suggest that in the country as a whole, almost five million households fell victim to porch piracy last year alone
'Long gone are the days of my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s, when millions felt safe to leave their front doors unlocked,' says TOM UTLEY
I should say at once that I have a lot of sympathy with the police, struggling to control crime in a country where respect for the law – and the old-fashioned virtue of honesty – is at its lowest ebb in the seven decades of my lifetime.
Long gone are the days of my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s, when not only did millions feel safe to leave their front doors unlocked, but my mother would often leave the key in the ignition of her unlocked car overnight. And that was in central London!
All right, this wasn’t a very wise thing to do, even then. But the car was never stolen. These days, it would have disappeared before you could say ‘Stop thief!’
Or look at the tens of thousands who cheat the benefits system, seeking guidance from dodgy internet sites on the ‘right’ answers to enter on the online application form for Universal Credit or Personal Independence Payments.
In my youth, a great many Britons would rather suffer hardship than live with what many saw as the shame of dependence on taxpayers’ charity.
I’m not saying that this was an attitude to be encouraged. But wasn’t it a great deal more honourable than the current fashion for screwing the maximum amount from hard-working fellow citizens, on the minimum of pretexts?
As for the current epidemic of shoplifting, in which growing numbers help themselves from the shelves and waltz out again without a trace of fear – let alone conscience – just ask any High Street retailer how highly, on a scale of zero to ten, he rates the chances that the offenders will be caught and punished.
I think we can all guess the answer – and it begins with a Z.
Yet doesn’t the case of our own porch pirate illustrate how the arrest and prosecution of a single offender can make a huge difference to the peace of mind of a great many law-abiding citizens?
Why do we always have to wait until a criminal’s minor offences mount up into a serial crime spree before the police and courts swing into action?
Surely it would save the authorities a whole lot of time, effort and money, in the long run, if only they adopted a zero-tolerance approach and acted sooner?
Oh dear, I’ve just learned from our neighbourhood WhatsApp group that a new parcel thief has been spotted hard at work just a couple of streets away from us.
Apparently he dresses in a hi-viz jacket to pose as a delivery driver.
So here’s a revolutionary suggestion for the local police. Instead of waiting for the tenth or fifteenth theft to be reported, how about sending an officer on foot to patrol our local streets?
You never know. The very sight of a police uniform could prevent another one-man crime wave before it gets properly under way.
But let me end with a plea to delivery drivers all over the country. Yes, I know you’re incredibly busy at this time of year, with the peak season for online shopping beginning on Black Friday at the end of this month, and lasting until Christmas.
However, do please remember that it’s also peak season for porch piracy, with more than a quarter of the entire year’s thefts reported in that one month alone.
So is it really too much to ask that if you have to leave a parcel outside our homes, you should make a small effort to hide it from passers-by?
Failing that, couldn’t you at least take the trouble to alert us to the delivery – by pressing the blinking doorbell?
