Stolen handbag in The Bishop Saturday 8th June

[DJKillaQueen]

But cctv can be useful when the persons might already be known to Police. You'd be suprised how many thieves already have criminal records and are known to local Police.

[stacey-lyn]

Appreciate the update stephanieod15.

When there was a wave of car break-ins one of the local CCTVs provided the evidence needed to convict the scumbag who, according to the police, had a long criminal history & responsible for 80% of the local car smash and grabs. A result.

A significant number are serial thieves and known to the police.

As is the experience of others, after a crime, we are much more vigilant & try to keep our belongings as close as practical to prevent it from happening again. This is obvious but unfortunately the handbag or jacket put on the back of a chair, or loo floor, or pushchair, or shopping trolley is a prime target for opportunist thieves.

Some places do have warning signs but most don't take a blind bit of notice.

[thebishop]

Hi Stephanie / All,

As with every pub / area where the public can gather, we do occasionally find ourselves targeted by bag thieves. We have managed to foil and catch countless number of these criminals over the years, including some resulting in arrests, and keep in regular communication with all of our pub neighbours as and when we identify there to be a problem in the area.

Unfortunately, bag thieves and pickpockets will always be on the lookout for easy targets in busy venues, and we can?t catch or stop them all ourselves ? we wish we could.

On this evening in question, the manager of the actress notified the manager on duty of the Bishop that he had just been alerted there was a bag thief in the area (amongst other venues notified).

Unfortunately this information came too late, as your bag in the Bishop had already been taken. After offering the pub phone to call the Police, the manager on Duty visited the EDT to look around, and see if they had seen them etc (finding out they had also been stolen from). As mentioned when he phoned you the next day, unfortunately the police had not been in touch, but we were happy that he could direct you to Neil at the Actress, who we know had managed to get a good shot of them.

We have CCTV recording most areas of the pub, and unfortunately, viewing it on our system in this instance it is difficult to pick out detail of the incident.

We will continue to do everything that we can to try and help the police, and you are welcome to come back to watch through the CCTV with us again to try and see any more clues.

As mentioned, we do think that we have an image of the couple, which we caught at the Actress. We cannot tweet this out, or show it publicly, as CCTV rules do not allow us to (although it may well have been sent out from someone's personal account..). This has been shown to the police, who did visit the actress concerning this couple, and are sending in one of their technicians to take it away. To the best of our knowledge the police are aware of the linking of these incidents, but cannot say why they have chosen not to request info / pics from the Bishop.

It is very difficult to be able to cover every inch of the premises at every angle. Some professional bag thieves know this, and actively try and work around cameras. We will look again, as we regularly do at our equipment to ensure it is doing the job it is there for.

If someone does have their property stolen, even with a perfect image, then unfortunately we have very limited powers in what we can do, short of barring them / notifying the police if we see them again / warning other premises nearby. It falls to the police to decide if they wish to investigate bag thieves, which they have on occasion (particularly when we caught one trying to steal from a police Christmas party), but sometimes they are obviously too busy.

In every case, we locate all of the images which we have, ready to burn a copy for the police?s use from our dedicated hard drive, along with a report which we prepare with timings and as much detail of the incident as we can. The police also have the power to come in and seize the hard drive from the CCTV system for them to review with their own extremely powerful software for extracting and tidying up images to view.

We store all of our CCTV images for 31 days, as it constitutes an offence for us to not do so.

Whilst we will continue to do everything that we can to prevent these incidents from occurring, we would implore everyone to keep a close eye on their possessions when in any public space. Bags on backs of, or poking out from under chairs make easy pickings for opportunists, not all of whom stick out like a sore thumb.

Whilst we have mentioned some of these incidents here, and abhor the situation, it must be said that it is a relatively rare problem in the area. If you are in the City or the West end, then these are nightly occurrences. As in this situation, it often happens when professional thieves, come in to the area, work fast moving between local venues, and then get out again just as quickly. Being able to notify the premises you are in as soon as possible when you have noticed the item missing assists us in telling other venues, and hopefully being able to catch them in the act elsewhere, and have your property returned after any resulting arrest.

Phil Sutton

Area Manager

[stingray]

See attached.

[Nicholas Spears]

Strafer said: 'Threads that try to warn people only serve to give the impression that things are worse than they are'.

Surely they only tell people how things actually are, unless they're exaggerated?

And if you don't warn people about crimes that have happened to you, aren't you giviing the impression that things are better than they are?

Either way, I'll be watching out for the pair in the CCTV picture when I'm next in the pub.

[StraferJack]

Nicholas

Ideally ? well, ideally, there would be no crime.. but y?know... ? so ideally I would like people to be able to post warnings on here but without

- A bunch of people saying ?what has happened to the area???. A subset of people in an area posting about incidents does not equal a rise in that incident overall. As more and more people register on the forum, we will see more of these reports ? it doesn?t mean the area itself is under seige

- asking what road/pub? As if that is how it works ? you are just as likely to be affected in road X as road Y dependeing on who is doing the naughty robby stuff (I know that hasn?t happend in this case, but it?s a regular thing)

As to you?re point

? if you don't warn people about crimes that have happened to you, aren't you giviing the impression that things are better than they are? ?

Possibly ? but does that mean that you need to know about every crime, as it occures to be in the full picture? I don?t ? I try and live my life as you would expect to live it in any major city ? thieving scumbags are about and will try and target easy prey, so I TRY and stay alert. I know I don't always tho....

As for the couple in the picture, I doubt we will see those individuals again ? they will have moved onto a new patch. But the main point about staying alert remains valid.

[stephanieod15]

Dear Phil,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my thread. Whilst your manager did indeed phone me on Sunday, he did not point me in the direction of The Actress as you've stated. We called The Actress retracing our steps as soon as we noticed the handbag was taken and it was us that informed him we were aware they had taken other items prior to ours. A case of cross wires perhaps?

I do understand however the limited action you can take against these idiots and that is the responsibility of the Police to investigate further and that indeed at times your staff are busy. Yesterday, we were just hoping for some more information to see when and how the bag was taken to make our case as accurate as possible pending insurance claims etc.

My previous thread was only tainted slightly/biased, as it seems a waste to arrange a time and day to review the CCTV footage in person yesterday evening, assuring it would be ready for viewing regardless of how little could or could not be seen and then not following through with that offer or prioritising it as arranged.....

Hopefully all these posts achieve is the possibility of ending these thieves operating not only in your bar but the general area too and raises the areas both the bar, myself and other customers can take as cautionary action to stop them operating successfully.

With their pictures out there now hopefully security staff, bar staff and customers can spot them before they ruin someone elses weekend.

Stay safe all on EDF!

[UncleBen]

To OP - I didn't steal your bag. Nor did the pub. To keston kid et al - advice i gave perfectly reasonable, and actually the same as SJ, he just takes more time over his posts. El pibe - well, won't waste my time.

[DJKillaQueen]

'As mentioned, we do think that we have an image of the couple, which we caught at the Actress. We cannot tweet this out, or show it publicly, as CCTV rules do not allow us to (although it may well have been sent out from someone's personal account..).'

This is a direct contravention of the data protection act which can result in prosecution.

[Rianoo]

Wouldn't the suspect theives have to come forward to make a case ? Catch 22 for them I suppose ? Anyway after looking at the CCTV I will keep an eye out for extras for Grease.

[StraferJack]

" Anyway after looking at the CCTV I will keep an eye out for extras for Grease."

someone PM'd me on here to say the male thief has stolen my hairstyle as well. Very droll

[El Pibe]

Ha, my god it is the lovechild of John Travolta nad StraferJack!!!

[DJKillaQueen]

No Rianoo they wouldn't. The law on commercial use CCTV is very clear and it is the responsibility of the premises to ensure footage doesn't fall into the hands of anyone but the Police or those directly involved or affected. It can be shown to relevant parties, such as victim etc and a hard copy can be provided. That hard copy can NOT then be published in the media or on the internet (which includes Stingrays post above). The Police have to follow a procedure set out in law and have valid reason for releasing CCTV images to the media. That is the law under the data protection act. And any member of the public can report a breach of those rules to the ICO.

http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/cctv

[Rianoo]

And you duly supply the link. Nice one.

[edw]

I thought it was a flat cap.

[pandrns]

I had my handbag stolen from EDT about 4 months ago and immediately told one of the barmen. All he said to me was 'that's strange, we don't have crime here.'

I had to press him to take my details and a description of my bag - he didn't seem bothered at all.

[Domme_Jay]

When I ran restaurants/ bars I always did my best to help deter, since dealing with the victims was a complete and utter nightmare, time consuming and often the people would be quite distressed.

They usually dump the bag nearby!

sympathies

Jay