A couple whose car was stolen say they tracked it down and took it back after getting fed up with the police.
Mia Forbes Pirie and Mark Simpson, from Brook Green, west London, realised their Jaguar E-Pace SUV was missing from its parking spot near their home last Tuesday.
The car was fitted with a tracking device, which pinged later that morning at a location a few miles away in Chiswick.
They called 999 but were informed that officers could not look into it for the time being and didn’t know when they’d be able to, The Times reports.
After suggesting they could find it themselves, they were told to call 101 if they succeeded – and only to ring 999 if ‘police assistance was necessary at the vehicle’s location’.
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Just over 50 minutes after their tracker pinged, they found the car – with its interior and carpets torn up by the thieves in an attempt to access its wiring – and hired a lorry to carry it back to their home.
‘I have to confess … it was kind of fun stealing back our own car,’ Ms Forbes Pirie said in a LinkedIn post .
‘But it does make me wonder whether we should have had to do that. And not whether it’s normal, but whether it’s right that the police seem to have no interest in investigating what is likely to have been a reasonably sophisticated operation involving a flat bed truck.
‘If there are no consequences, what is the incentive for people not to do more of this?’
Police reportedly contacted the couple but have not sent a forensics team to look at the car nearly a week after the theft.
Ms Forbes Pirie added: ‘Since we’ve found it lots of people have touched the car and the police say that they’re going to look underneath the carpets and at the fuse box to see if there are prints there. But it wouldn’t have cost very much for them to tell us not to touch anything. That’s the one criticism I have.
‘The police are under-resourced and it’s a shame. But if there aren’t any consequences to people stealing cars or a lot of the other crimes where there aren’t any consequences, then I don’t really see what the deterrent is to stop people from doing it more.’
The Metropolitan Police said: ‘On Tuesday, 3 June at 10:06hrs, police were alerted to the theft of a vehicle on Sterndale Road, W14.
‘Officers spoke to the victim, who shared his intention to recover the vehicle himself. An Apple Airtag was inside, allowing the victim to view its location and trace it.
‘The victim was reminded by officers to contact police again as needed or if police assistance was necessary at the vehicle’s location.
‘At 11:23hrs the victim confirmed with police that he had found the vehicle and that it was being recovered by a truck back to the victim’s home address.
‘This investigation is ongoing and police are working with the victim. No arrests have been made at this stage.’
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