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Thieves stole £13m of metal from railways, say police

BBC 2 January 2012 Last updated at 12:33 GMT

Metal worth £13m has been stolen from the railways over the past three years, police have said.

British Transport Police said there were more than 6,000 such incidents between April 2008 and October 2011.

In half of cases, the stolen property involved equipment used for the safe and efficient operating of the network.

British Transport Police deputy chief constable Paul Crowther urged scrap dealers to make it more difficult for thieves to sell stolen goods to them.

The biggest single theft was at Loxdale Street, Bilston, in the West Midlands, in July of last year.

Thieves took 150m of fibre optic cable and 18km of earth bonding cable, each worth £300,000. British Transport Police (BTP) said two men have been charged over the incidents.

Another £300,000 worth of train buffers and components were stolen at Stoke-on-Trent in December 2009.

Overall, Rotherham Central was the worst affected station with 107 separate incidents costing a total of £100,000.

There were 24 fewer incidents at Doncaster but they totalled nearly £200,000, including an £88,000 half-mile stretch of track taken in December 2010.

Other hotspots included Morpeth (77 incidents), Stockingford (69), Knottingly (67), Castleford (66), Hull (63) and Hartlepool (53)

Mr Crowther, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers metal theft working group, said BTP arrested more than 1,000 people in connection with cable thefts last year.

He said: "We are continuing to work with police forces across the country to tackle metal thieves, but this is a crime driven by market forces and the outlet for stolen metal is through scrap metal dealers.

"Our biggest challenge is that criminals can turn up at scrap yards with copper cables and walk away with thousands of pounds in cash, with scrap yards either turning a blind eye to their criminality or taking metal with no questions asked.

"It's easy to convert this stolen property into cash and that's why we continue to focus our attention on dealers."

Infrastructure company Network Rail wants a change in the law to make it more difficult for thieves to sell cable and scrap to dealers.

A spokesman said: "Thieves, particularly those stealing cable, deny passengers the service they rightly expect and, through the massive cost to the industry, deny everyone improvements to rail services as funds have to be diverted from enhancing the railway to tackling crime."

On Sunday, insurer Ecclesiastical revealed that 2011 was the worst on record for the number of claims made by churches for metal theft.

Costliest railway thefts

Loxdale Street (fibre optics) - £300,000
Loxdale Street (cable) - £300,000
Stoke-on-Trent - £300,000
Preston Road - £275,000
Pontefract Tanshelf - £160,000
Clipstone - £150,000
Greenock West - £150,000
Kinkerswell - £130,000
Roy Bridge - £125,000
Darlaston - £120,000
Canning Town - £100,000
Ludgershall - £100,000
Figures for April 2008-October 2011

LIVES PUT AT RISK AS RAIDERS STRIP SCOTS RAILWAYS OF METAL

In Scotland, more than £1million worth of metal has been stolen over the last three years

Daily Express
Tuesday January 3,2012
By Paul Gilbride

METAL thefts from railways are costing the economy £1billion a year, causing 16,000 hours of train delays and putting hundreds of lives at risk.

In Scotland, more than £1million worth of metal has been stolen over the last three years, with thieves escaping with a £150,000 haul in just one incident last year.

Transport police revealed there were more than 300 incidents of metal thefts between April 2008 and October last year and, in one in three cases, equipment vital to the safe and efficient running of the rail network was taken.

The startling figures come as metal prices soar and a huge demand from China and India for raw materials fuels an unprecedented crime spree.

Just two crimes in Scotland accounted for a total of more than £250,000, with the most costly being the theft of 70 tons of rail, worth £150,000, from Greenock West station last October.

A heavier haul, 125 tons of metal, was taken from Roybridge, in the Highlands, in April 2010, but that was valued at £125,000. It would have been impossible to remove the stolen metal without heavy goods vehicles, and the two crimes are still being investigated.

Yesterday, SNP MSP Stuart McMillan said metal thieves were putting people’s lives at risk and added that there are plans for secondary legislation to toughen the licensing regime for scrap metal dealers. “It is extremely worrying to hear thieves removed vital railway equipment,” he said.“Where is the respect for people’s lives?”

Motherwell, home of the football team nicknamed The Steelmen, was the worst-hit town in Scotland, with the railway station and a depot suffering 11 incidents each, while £1,500 of cable was stolen from the town’s signalling centre.

On December 14, a man was charged with stealing cable 10 years ago in Wishaw, and last month Stuart Hoey, 36, was sentenced to six months for cable theft in the same town.

Robert Wright, 46, now an ex-employee of Babcock Rail, received 200 hours’ community service and a £1,000 compensation order for stealing scrap rail from Carmont level crossing last year.

The British Transport Police want to see scrap yards stripped of the right to deal in cash, and are seeking restrictions on dealers who buy stolen metal.

A spokesman said: “The Scotland area of BTP’s dedicated Metal Theft Team visits scrap metal dealers on a daily basis and, as a consequence, stolen rail has not been discovered at a scrap metal dealer in Scotland for some time.”