Car vandalism has seen a worrying rise in recent years. According to police data, the number of reported cases has risen by 10% in the past three years, while some parts of the country have seen an increase of as much as 37% over the same period.
Rising problem
Over 210,000 vehicles suffered some kind criminal damage in 2016, including smashed windows, broken windscreens and slashed tyres. That’s a huge increase on the figure from 2013, which stood at 191,000 according to data from RAC Insurance.
The real statistics may even be a lot higher, as many motorists don’t report such incidents for fear that their insurance premiums will increase. They simply pay to rectify the damage themselves rather than face the anticipated expense and the time and inconvenience involved in getting the car repaired via their insurance company. The knowledge that they must report any claim for another three to five years after the incident simply serves to add insult to injury.
(Credit – Chris Upson)
Which areas are worst affected?
RAC Insurance Director Mark Godfrey has called vandalism one of the most ‘frustrating crimes’ because the disruption and distress it causes is the result of selfish, intentional criminal damage. The picture of such damage around the UK is not an even one.
According to figures collected from 24 of the UK’s 37 police forces, Greater Manchester Police saw the most significant increase in car vandalism cases between 2013 and 2016. The number of cases in their patch increased by 37% over the period. In joint second place were Hertfordshire Constabulary and the West Yorkshire Police, both of which saw a 25% increase in the number of vehicle vandalism cases.
The top ten increases recorded by the forces that provided data were:
- Greater Manchester – 37%
- Hertfordshire – 25%
- West Yorkshire – 25%
- Northumbria – 22%
- Cambridgeshire – 19%
- South Yorkshire – 19%
- Dyfed-Powys – 15%
- Bedfordshire – 13%
- Staffordshire – 12%
- Kent – 11%
- Durham – 11%
Regarding the total number of cases reported, it’s no surprise that London’s Metropolitan Police saw the most significant number of cases – 26,064 in total in 2016.
Another issue with car vandalism is that the number of people caught and prosecuted is relatively small. If someone causes less than £5,000 worth of damage, then they can face a fine of up to £2,500 or up to three months in prison. If the damage costs more than £5,000, then the fine rises to £5,000, and the prison term to up to six months.
Protecting your vehicle
One of the problems with vandalism is that it is much harder to combat than other car-related crimes. A good car alarm can dramatically reduce the risk of a car being stolen, but does little to deter vandals. However, there are steps that you can take to protect your vehicle.
If you have a garage or carport, then it’s always a good idea to use it for your car overnight. Making a car harder to reach is a great deterrent, as many vandals are just looking for a quick, easy target.
Some people think that keeping your vehicle out of the light can be a good idea, but the opposite is true when it comes to fighting vandalism. By parking your car beneath a bright street light or external house light, you can reduce the risk of it being vandalised as the vandal has a higher chance of being seen.
While standard car alarms are designed to stop someone stealing the car, you can get enhanced alarms that are motion activated. This means that if something moves the vehicle more than the wind could do, the alarm will sound. While alarms may seem not much of a deterrent, it is surprising how many vandals will move away quickly when a loud sound calls attention to their actions.
You may even want to add CCTV cameras on the outside of your house to cover where you park your car. Their presence can act as a deterrent to the casual vandal. Additionally, if something does happen to the car, you have footage to take to the police to help catch and prosecute those responsible.
Have you noticed a rise in car crime such as vandalism in your local area in recent years? What measures are you taking to protect your vehicle? Leave a comment below to share your experiences.
“if something does happen to the car, you have footage to take to the police to help catch and prosecute those responsible.”
Just like my mate who had some scrote pick up an abandoned gas bottle and throw it through the back window of his car. Police looked at the CCTV evidence even though the perp was clearly identifiable they proceeded to do …………….NOTHING.
I’ve just been watching the Death Wish films again mmmmmm
My grandaughter along with 30 other cars and various doors had yellow paint penis’s daubed on them. After finding one of the spray cans used and finding out who the two (15 yr old) offenders were, Sussex police were not interested in pursuing the matter unless we had cctv evidence of the offence. WHAT DO WE PAY THEM FOR ???
We pay them to do as little as possible.
That’s why they are all overweight.
Rather than push these louts into the court system we need to recognise they are simply GWEs (Green With Envy) and rather than get ahead and earn the money to buy nice cars they prefer to vandalise those belonging to hard working people with standards.
Sadly, unless society faces up to some currently unthinkable solutions these scumbags will just breed more scumbags who will perpetuate the mentality of their parents.
Meantime, don’t leave it to our so-called justice system to sort out these mentally- challenged individuals because it just doesn’t work for victims.
Whenever I park my car in a public space I leave measures in place that I can broadcast. Put up photographs of the offenders so other motorists know who they are.
I’m sorry, but it’s this kind of , “oh don’t spank the babies, they had a bad upbringing, bullcrap”, that got us in this situation in the 1st place, the majority of kids today have no idea of right or wrong. so they think it’s perfectly all right to go out and smash someone’s car, or shoot up a cinema, or church, because it “seemed like a good idea” and “other people have done it so why can’t I??”.
If i did wrong as a kid, i got punished, it hasn’t done me any harm. but i do know the difference between good and bad.
Not only that but “they had a sad, impoverished upbringing” excuse is an entry card to getting help from charities like “Children in Need”. We were brought up with little, but didn’t go around smashing up bus shelters because we had nothing to do and needed community centres funded by other people’s money. When society promotes this kind of attitude and everyone supports it like sheep, there is little hope of reason and sanity prevailing.
Shoot up a cinema????
Where the hell do you live?
Issuing and collecting parking and speeding fines to help with the austerity measures. All the important things of course.
They don’t even do that Don, the council employs parking wardens and the speeding fines are collected at council offices after being issued by machines (cameras)
I am a retired man in his 70th year and had a young woman who was leaving a party next door at 02.50 on a Monday morning ring our door bell out of spite and then ran off when the security light came on. She was with approx. 5 other youths who were noisy at such a time of the morning. The incident was recorded on CCTV but the police were not interested. You are correct; what am I paying for in the police part of my council tax. A Greater Manchester resident.
Id be unhappy too! But not because someone rang your door bell, but because you expect the police to investigate such minor matters!
Anti social behaviour is NOT a minor matter especially when it is directed at pensioner aged people. This is why we pay towards a police force to help vulnerable people feel safe.
Anti-social behaviour (in Manchester as it happened) turned my life upside down. I had to leave a job at the peak of my career (something I will never regain), my health went, I lost thousands on my house and all because the police could do nothing about the drug dealing neighbours because the law is an ass in this country. The Inspector held his head in his hands as he listened to all I was going through and could do nothing; the council manager could not evict their drug dealing tenants without on the spot evidence; the local MP (Anne Coffey) didn’t care if I lived or died. It took four years for the system to imprison this woman – for two years, probably out after six weeks. I have recently come back from living in the Middle East for three years – never felt safer. We could learn a lot from them.
Apparently these days we pay them for nicking people who say nasty things on Twitter.
In that case, Trump should be serving life!
Try not to be such a cock
Well that’s because it’s nice and warm in the station. Too cold to go out, unless it’s Murder.
They don’t even do that. My husband had someone try to ruin his reputation via twitter. When he went to the police he was simply told stay off Twitter then!
You took the words right out of my mouth there Bill, it’s the same in South Yorkshire. Police are not interested in prosecuting unless they actually catch them in the act, which is highly unlikely as there are no foot patrols at all and the only patrol cars I see are when they park up for their breakfast or shopping.
Vast majority of these vandals are teenagers, just goes to show the case for discipline in the home. People keep trying to be best mates with their kids instead of parents.
Ah yes discipline in the house hold, didn’t the Labour Government make that illegal?
YES ! And with the upcoming Labour Government (aka Marxist Regime) we can expect even more legislation that will protect these scumbags (masquerading as Working Class – whatever the hell thats supposed to be).
It is difficult to argue with people like you who are blind to reality. You are obviously happy to see the gap between the rich and working people get wider, to see cuts in services to the old, the young, the disabled. You seem to support a government that ignores tax avoidance by the wealthy and companies, that cuts monies to local authorities and then tells the world that local authorities are to blame. A government who has punished public sector workers for the sins of the global recession and blames the Labour Government for the same international meltdown of business caused by lack of regulation and greed in the finance sectors throughout the world. Gordon Brown was an idiot to claim that the government had ended boom and bust. But this government is claiming that it has ended unemployment through their management. Just look at the problems in homes for the elderly, lack of monies in schools, lack of monies in the NHS. I hate the idea of any extreme government but what do we have now?
bloody hell alan. what kind of people use this website? the comments here are worse than on a typical daily mail story. your comment had a net 7 thumbs downs before i got here, while all the nasty ones have many thumbs ups.
it seems that by wanting to save a few p per litre on petrol (to avoid paying excessive profits to massive corporations who don’t pay enough tax) we have stumbled upon some of the most narrow minded selfish people in the UK. if only we were still allowed to assault our kids in the street then none of this would have happened. oh for the halcyon days when kids got belted in school for getting a maths problem wrong and there was zero crime right?
I think you will find that discipline in schools was outlawed because we were told it was causing people to think violence was ok and was breading violence in the home. That worked out well didn’t it, with domestic violence rocketing? Nobody is saying there was zero crime then, but when they were caught they were properly punished.
rob – open your mind and learn a little. has domestic violence really sky rocketed? or has acknowledgement of it and reporting of it increased?
maybe back in the days when women weren’t allowed to work and everyone was hit constantly the women were too scared to speak up as the public shame of divorce would have been too much with right wing people treating them badly?
thanks for compounding my view though that greedy right wing selfish people have completely misguided views on lots of things and it is this that leads to their stupid opinions.
I couldn’t agree more Alan. I don’t know why complaints about the way the police handle vandalism issues should turn into an attack on the party that isn’t in power! What are the present government doing about these problems?
There are plenty of scum parents already, many on sink estates or drug damaged. The police will not do anything as they consider the case to be low key, besides, they usually spout lack of resources and no officers available. This only perpetuates the problem, as it gives the scum added incentive to carry on as normal, and if caught, the CPS will spout all excuses and the court gives such ridiculous sentences, they walk out laughing.
Exactly – parents have a lot to answer for.
A few years ago my wife used my car to get some shopping in the local Tesco store. On return she found the driver’s door open, and 15 pounds worth of shopping missing.
I reported the incident to the police, and asked the manager of Tesco if I could see the CCTV records – there were none, only a notice claiming that there were cameras to discourage parking beyond the time limit.
I was told that a scene of crime officer would call the next day. They did not attend, when I rang the plods they said that they had decided not to attend as I would not like to have my car covered in finger print dust!
Damage to car was in excess of £1000.
To add insult to injury the police told me that there had been so many episodes of wanton damage to cars at the location they had been regularly patrolling the car park – until the week before my episode?
david – without meaning to sound harsh what do you really want to happen in this situation? you have presumably had a broken window and £15 of shopping stolen. while it’s a great inconvenience to you are the police going to carry out a major investigation to try to recover your £15 worth of shopping? how much tax do you think we would need to pay to maintain such a rigorous service?
report something like this to the police so they have more accurate stats and might prioritise it in future if they see rates going up. but then, i’m afraid, you just have to fix it and get on with your life.
I had several incidents of vandalism when parked outside my home… one consisting of damage to 3 sides of the vehicle plus windscreen and mirrors costing over £4000 to fix
It only stopped when a local councillor was cautioned by the police and told to stop deliberately inciting others
wow that’s a lot !
I had my tyres slashed on my front drive covered by CCTV the person was caught in the act and got 3 months in prison and I got the bill for all 4 tyres.
If they are convicted you can ask for an attachment to pay you back, it will be taken from their wages or benefit
It seems that criminal damage is no longer an offence. We had the roof of our car jumped on by some brain-dead cretin who then jumped off that onto the bonnet seriously denting and scratching both but leaving trainer prints on the panels. When informed, the Police weren’t interested.
I was shot at driving home from my local Tesco. There was a hole through my windscreen although we didn’t find a bullet or other missile inside the car. There were houses down both sides of the road and there was no-one around and I think it came from a bedroom window. I was very shaken but I drove straight to my local police station only 1/4 mile away. I waited at the desk for more than 10 minutes before someone could be bothered to answer the bell. A policewoman came out chewing gum and when I told her what had happened she said they’d had no reports of any similar incidents in the area. She said ‘we’ll keep our eyes open’ I asked if she wanted to see the car and she declined. I was given a crime number and never heard anything more. I footed the bill for a new windscreen. It doesn’t surprise me that vandalism is on the increase I can’t remember when I last saw a policeman on duty walking around anywhere. The police are a disgrace and a complete waste of time and money.
You are lucky, our Chief Constable has closed all police stations to the public, and you can only report things on line or over a phone, via 101. Some of our stations have even been sold off, so we stand no chance in the West Midllands. The only one still open is central PS, where there is no parking, opposite the Children’s Hospital, and no public transport for quite a distance, so nobody bothers. Besides, they are even closing that!
Our Police station cost our town over £ 5.000,000 not that long ago now it is closed and you can only contact the cops by picking up an outside phone and ringing them at the police head office of Lincolnshire, 20 odd miles from my town and if you need a copper they have to come from Lincoln, what a load of bollocks, we are paying out of our council tax for them to look after Lincoln not my home town of Gainsborough.
I have no faith in the police for minor types of crime (see my comment earlier) but I think we need to get things in perspective. The police do get involved in serious crimes such as murder, rapes, paedophilia, serious frauds and trying to trace missing people (especially children) etc.
Perhaps now is the time to find an alternative to using the police for these minor offences. If we have video footage of culprits and they are known, can we not take them to court in a private prosecution? to do this would require money for legal costs but if there was an organisation who suggested that they would do this I would be willing to contribute financially to it.
A police man / woman WALKING a beat, that finished in the seventy’s in my home town, we once had a 6′ x four foot window smashed as we were looking out at our car with the alarm going off, this young barsteward threw himself at our window, I rang the police and a Sargent cop came up as he was riding about our estate, these scumbags were still around our house, he got out of his car and said is it that lot down the road I said yes, he said we dare not arrest them or they will come back and trash your home, and he just drove off, I was gabber flasted,
What do you do when a Sargent copper tells you that.
It appears the majority of these incidents is caused by unemployed or bored juveniles who thinks its fun/a laugh when they are with their mates…a sort of do or dare challenge to keep in with them. That is something l have witnessed quite a few times.
Now if the local youth centres were still open (local authority spending cuts etc) then there would be less likelihood of this.
graham – good answer but sadly most of the selfish posters in this thread would rather see tax funds diverted into a massive nationwide search and prosecution of the perpetrator of the minor damage to their own car. the selfish middle classes of UK are a lovely bunch sometimes.
So Iain are you saying the youth today are so stupid that unless you find something for them to do they will go out and trash everything just for fun. Youth Centres were not necessarily open everyday anyway, so the same thing is going to happen when they are closed for even a day. I think you will find the real reason is they have no fear of authority, because in this soft leftie society nothing ever happens to them, even if they are caught. The very worst than can happen is they end up in a hotel, sorry youth detention centre, where they have more comfort and amenities than they have at home.
hi again rob. so looks like you scrolled through the entire thread to needle my every comment. instead of repeating the nonsensical ‘man down the pub said’ viewpoint on things in life, why don’t you do some proper research and learn about something.
maybe you’ll learn what actually happens to people who are heavily punished for minor vandalism at 15. maybe you’ll learn that people aren’t born inherently bad but people in poorer areas are more likely to end up this way. maybe you’l just learn something, anything and have a greater appreciation of the world we live in.
or maybe you’ll just bury your head in the sand, keep voting tory (to support corporations and mega rich tax dodging) and blaming the poor and immigrants for all the ills in the world. what do you think of trumps new tax cuts for the rich?
Some years ago I found a system which appears to be straightforward sensor lights, but which sends a signal via the mains to a plug-in unit which we use in our bedroom. When the outside light is triggered at night, the inside unit dings and wakens us. We grab a torch and look out – this is enough to get intruders to clear off.
Oh, and I put a heavy chain and padlock round each steering wheel every night which is a good deterrent in the first place.
Great idea. We have to take more action to protect our property.
The thing is with thieves is if they want something bad they WILL get it one way or another no matter what you try to do to stop them, sorry but it is true.
It happens all the time to me in the road where l live as there’s some supposed ‘mental’ tenant who has already got out 3 residents she didnt like and kept annoying them; one tenant she harrassed died of 2nd Stroke. She tells lies to newcomers. Scratches all the time on my Car, wheels trims cut off, glass under tyres and newer car 3x punctures and one bent wheel – all overnight. Unfortunately,l dont have driveway and Council just ignore – even tho Tenancy handbook says: you/ visitors must not upset
neighbours AND tell you cant put up CCTV/ Life impossible here and they
try to stop you moving. Police are always helpful and l have 12 Incident nos
and 8 Medical letters – all ignored
when I lived abroad it was easy ,it was legal to just shoot them we had very few problems, I wounder why.
That’s what they deserve as they are, and always will be, a waste of space. Me and my wife would love to rid the world of these scum.
I am sorry to say that I have found that most vehicles being vandalised are diesel cars by the so called greens and that’s thanks to the government with the dirty car campaign.
joseph – this piece has brought out some ridiculously narrow minded right wing comments but congratulations, you win the most stupid comment award.
yes yes, you are bound to be right, bored youths walk the streets looking for the cars with the highest g CO2/km combined with fraudulent emissions test results to kick the wing mirror off. i see them all the time gathering on street corners with their copies of auto trader, which and their EU emissions testing reports plotting their next political statement.
They don’t walk the streets, they cruise around in Nissan leafs.
At night have a motion sensitive light illuminate the parking area.
Just the state this country is in today MANY do not care about anything or anybody but their selfish selves
We help to run an after school pub to cater for youth in a deprived area but found the car roof and bonnet dented when someone tried to walk all over the car. The police were sympathetic, as we were trying to help the community but the council security cams were useless as the images were indistinct. What do we pay council tax for duff equipment?
“We help to run an after school pub”. Sounds like you’re fueling the issue LOL!
Blimey, wish they had had after school pubs in my day! I blame the disappearance of slag heaps. That’s where we all used to go and play after school, and after a few hours running around there and throwing stones all over the place we didn’t have enough energy left to go jumping on car roofs.
Plus, of course, I was brought up with the maxim “if it isn’t yours, don’t touch!”
My car windscreen was smashed by a mindless idiot earlier this year. Reported it to the Police who sent round a Scenes of Crime expert who found a footprint which matched ones found on five other vehicles which had been damaged the same night. So six crimes but no further follow up!!
Car was off the road for over a week as the windscreen was a “special order” thanks to someone’s idea of fun.
If you voted Conservative, you supported less resources for the police to investigate these crimes and prosecute those responsible.
nick – but sadly i feel 99% of comments on this post are from tory voters. they seem a very very selfish bunch. they want to see less tax so they are not ‘supporting scroungers’ but then they all seem to expect a massive dedicated response to their minor losses when their cars get damaged.
irony is these fools have been duped by the mega rich who benefit most from the tax system.
Being more successful is hardly the mark of a ‘fool’ Iain .The Top 1% pay for your bennies and tax credits …so a bit of gratitude would be appreciated 🙂
charlie – it is sad that you lack the intellect to understand my point. the typical tory voting fool i refer to earns a bit above average salary. my point is that they are the ones who enable the top 1% to manipulate the tax system for their own benefit.
i do not fall into the tax credit bracket but i am insightful enough to realise that maintaining this tax system is wrong. the top 1% pay by far the smallest % of their income in tax – but the ‘fools’ who vote tory enable them.
you may view yourself as ‘successful’ so well done you but i’m pretty sure you;re a long way off the 1%. look into it a bit more, you might be surprised that you’ve been duped into blaming a few folk on meagre benefits for the ills of the country.
I think you will find that the cuts have been caused by the government trying to put us back in the black since the last leftie government put us completely in debt with ridiculous spending. Plus idiot brown sold our gold reserves at a stupidly low price.
A few years ago I had my van window smashed on my drive behind gates and my wallet stolen ( left in by mistake) I foolishly decided to find out myself who did it and a day or two later I grabbed a friend of the offender and carefully gave him a back hander , thinking I’d handled the situation I went home and was greeted by about 7 police who tried to say I’d assaulted the chap , after questioning the nice offender agreed to drop the charges after a week or two … it turned out his friend was the perpetrator and thinking I was a psycho ( lol) repaid my money minus the wallet and has since got a job and turned his life around so after all that it did turn out okay but no real help by the police ♀️
Street lighting is turned off a night, only those at junctions are left on after midnight, so parking under a street-lamp is a thing of the past, thanks to councils trying to ‘save the environment’.
Hello, Wing mirror (electric & folding) broken on passenger side , ie pavement side Upperton Road Eastbourne. No debris so deliberate.
Were you parked on the pavement perhaps ?
Only England/Wales figures????
Street lights turned off overnight where I live, has seen our cul de sac become a lovey place for car crime at 3 am.
We live in a rural town of 4k population in the NE of Scotland. From 2002 till 2012 we had several acts of vandalism/accidents to our cars parked in the street adjacent to our home where the only outcome was to our expense and receipt of a police incident ref no. After we installed CCTV during 2012 to date we have had no vandalism on our vehicles apart from valve caps stolen, recorded 2 break ins and other property acts of vandalism to adjacent properties, kids using lasers on motorists etc. I believe the culprits were all successfully identified cautioned or prosecuted by the police. A recent tyre slashing of two vehicle of our next door neighbour was not recorded due to a software glytch/crash of system. The police have on occasion viewed our CCTV footage in connection with other cases.
Cost of damage to vehicles 2002-2012 around +£7k Cost since 2012 for aftermarket tyre valve caps £5
CCTV has so far exceeded our expectations as a deterrent in protecting the security of our property and vehicles.
Scotland and NE are well behaved?????
Under the freedom of info act you can ask for the statistics for crime in your area. The information can be surprising/enlightening in deciding whether to go the expense of CCTV or even outside lighting with night switch can be a good deterrent (recommeded by the police) and worth installing.
Having got rid of The Bible (Love Thy neighbour etc.,) in the nations churches, schools and homes and replaced it with Evolution (survival of the fittest!) you have “sown the wind, & reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7) you have inherited and nutured an immoral “… generation, O how lofty are their eyes! & their eyelids are lifted up.” (Proverbs 30:13). It can only get worse – just like the days of Sodom & Gomarrah (go figure): “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” (Daniel 12:1). Enjoy.
What an emotive subject! your contributors have blamed every conceivable entity from the police to God. Society is actually to blame, each and everyone of us. Everyone today knows their rights! There are industrial size legal firms, vying for the opportunity to sue anyone and everyone who is deemed to have violated our RIGHTS! – they are totally impartial, they will represent villain or saint, it matters not, so long as there is profit.
Every time a crime is committed, its someone other than the person who committed the crime to blame, its always the teachers, police officers, courts, social worker or someone else who is hung out to dry! Our parents, teachers, social workers, police officers, courts, prison officers, are all hemmed in and rendered impotent by rules, regulation and endless bureaucracy. Instead of a reasoned response to crime and criminals, we castigate everything and everybody but forget, this is the society we have allowed. Just perhaps, instead of rights, we should have responsibilities and there should be real consequences for our actions!
I agree, like the death penalty for personal theft would be a start. Failing that, make prisons be places that nobody wants to be sent to, not the hotels they are now. Make the prisoners work in chain gangs and if they don’t like it they won’t come back, should help the reoffending.
rob – you are a moron. why not see if you can get an invite to a prison and have a tour. hotel??? what the **** are you talking about man?
Someone goes out of their way to cause damage to someone else’s property and the police aren’t interested. Someone else accidentally does 34mph in a 30 at 2 in the morning and you best believe they’ll be feeling the full weight of the law, treated like the scum criminal they are…
Interesting article, see here’s the thing, I wanted to protect my car on my front driveway after my number plates were stolen by building a 5′ perimeter wall and gate system. Only to be told by the council that I am not allowed to protect the drive in this way as it would spoil to look of the area!!!
So let the thugs do as they will because you cannot do anything about it legally anyway?
Iain
Perhaps you would just love it if one of your little pals vandalised
YOUR car, wouldn’t you? So long as it’s only posh people’s posh cakes, it’s OK
Isn’t it…
Oh! I forgot. How can the little dears do anythiing wrong? Vandalism is just being friendly! Little darlings.. and all little socialists.. Like you.
anna – what a daft thing to say. i recently actually had my wing mirror smashed off while parked in a dead end street in an affluent suburb. the only person who could have done it was a rich person who was bad at driving – and horribly horribly selfish by not taking responsibility for their mistake.
what was my reaction? did i call the police and demand a full investigation at the cost of thousands to the tax payer followed by execution of the culprit. or did i shrug my shoulders and think damn.
are the selfish bad drivers just being friendly too?
One solution bring back national service then see how they behave you you will find a lot of you would leave this country with luck.
Well I actually filmed 2 youths on cctv breaking into my car. I showed Sussex police the footage. They new who the boys were but said they won’t pursue the matter.
Around the same time a local gang of kids had just smashed my neighbour’s back windows. The police turned up as my neighbour grabbed the youth by the scruff of the neck and then threatened to arrest the neighbour for assaulting a minor…
We live in a society where the police are more interested in revenue collecting off of motorists,, The ones who commit car crime produce NO REVENUE,, That is why they dont really care on Car Crime SIMPLE
That’s part of the problem, if the police don’t follow up then the vandals have nothing to fear. The reason can only be the police know they would lose the case without cast-iron evidence, Our CJS has made it just too hard to prosecute, blame governments and the European courts for making it all too complex and the clever lawyers who milk it. A few years ago my rear screen was shattered by a moron with a catapult from over 50 yrds away and from a moving bike, CCTV proved useless. I’d chop their fingers off, they wouldn’t do it again!
Well a knock on the head with a piece of 4 x 2 used to solve problems around the old docks. But if you were to do this now, the Police would be after you, the parents can be even worse. So everyone accepts it part of todays life. But we shouldn’t need to accept this. My Range Rover has scratches now and being a 98 vehicle, not worth the insurance claim. My retired sprayer states it would need a complete respray for the paint to match.
The horrible old woman next door has smacked into my car 3 times in 31 days!! I’ve had long standing problems with those people, apparently with not enough proof of the crimes in every case. Police say they cant do anything without evidence. My insurance co says I’ll have to pay if I want the damages repaired as she has denied it all, so I won’t be paying for the repairs as I know she’ll just do it all again.
MY cctv doesn’t cover the top of the drive and my drive is too precipitous to park on . Most dash cams seem to have very poor reviews where parking mode is concerned so I am at a loss of what to do.
I had evidence that two local thugs had been jumping on my car, running over the roof and sliding down the windscreen and bonnet, when I challenged these two charmers they got angry “until I got angrier” and told them that they have three choices, 1 they wash and polish my car in just their socks and boxers . 2 I call the police, OR 3 I take out my anger on their faces…They chose to wash and polish my car in their boxers and socks.. After this they showed me the utmost respect…
The Polices ineffectiveness is probably because they are under resourced or drowning in red tape, or might be because they actually don’t give a toss!? That and the TV Morons make “entertainment” out of these Morons doing what they know they will get bugger all for perpetrating.
Try Tazering them till they froth at the mouth and see if they think its clever then, I guarantee they won’t.
Either way this ever increasing disenchantment, disaffection and general lawlessness within many sectors of society [not just the “working class” either], can and will inevitably only end in the collapse of society as we know it.
That is to say if the Police can’t fix it perhaps vigilante groups can !!!!!
Just saying
This is a direct result of continual cuts in Policing and continual none effective sentences by the courts. If caught these people should serve a term of imprisonment.
I had a car stolen from in front of my house years ago. Wandsworth police: not interested – Sgt said get a Peugeot for the coded key. Recently my neighbours had 8 CCTV cameras put in. Caught film of man breaking into car, climbing over two locked sidegates, posted on local website. Police – no action. I asked my electrician about CCTV – he reported installing two in local shops. Intruders filmed, clearly ident – police : no action. So why bother. And can you get a firearms certificate….?
“if something does happen to the car, you have footage to take to the police to help catch and prosecute those responsible.”
Just like my mate who had some scrote pick up an abandoned gas bottle and throw it through the back window of his car. Police looked at the CCTV evidence even though the perp was clearly identifiable they proceeded to do …………….NOTHING.
I’ve just been watching the Death Wish films again mmmmmm
My grandaughter along with 30 other cars and various doors had yellow paint penis’s daubed on them. After finding one of the spray cans used and finding out who the two (15 yr old) offenders were, Sussex police were not interested in pursuing the matter unless we had cctv evidence of the offence. WHAT DO WE PAY THEM FOR ???
We pay them to do as little as possible.
That’s why they are all overweight.
Rather than push these louts into the court system we need to recognise they are simply GWEs (Green With Envy) and rather than get ahead and earn the money to buy nice cars they prefer to vandalise those belonging to hard working people with standards.
Sadly, unless society faces up to some currently unthinkable solutions these scumbags will just breed more scumbags who will perpetuate the mentality of their parents.
Meantime, don’t leave it to our so-called justice system to sort out these mentally- challenged individuals because it just doesn’t work for victims.
Whenever I park my car in a public space I leave measures in place that I can broadcast. Put up photographs of the offenders so other motorists know who they are.
I’m sorry, but it’s this kind of , “oh don’t spank the babies, they had a bad upbringing, bullcrap”, that got us in this situation in the 1st place, the majority of kids today have no idea of right or wrong. so they think it’s perfectly all right to go out and smash someone’s car, or shoot up a cinema, or church, because it “seemed like a good idea” and “other people have done it so why can’t I??”.
If i did wrong as a kid, i got punished, it hasn’t done me any harm. but i do know the difference between good and bad.
Not only that but “they had a sad, impoverished upbringing” excuse is an entry card to getting help from charities like “Children in Need”. We were brought up with little, but didn’t go around smashing up bus shelters because we had nothing to do and needed community centres funded by other people’s money. When society promotes this kind of attitude and everyone supports it like sheep, there is little hope of reason and sanity prevailing.
Shoot up a cinema????
Where the hell do you live?
Issuing and collecting parking and speeding fines to help with the austerity measures. All the important things of course.
They don’t even do that Don, the council employs parking wardens and the speeding fines are collected at council offices after being issued by machines (cameras)
I am a retired man in his 70th year and had a young woman who was leaving a party next door at 02.50 on a Monday morning ring our door bell out of spite and then ran off when the security light came on. She was with approx. 5 other youths who were noisy at such a time of the morning. The incident was recorded on CCTV but the police were not interested. You are correct; what am I paying for in the police part of my council tax. A Greater Manchester resident.
Id be unhappy too! But not because someone rang your door bell, but because you expect the police to investigate such minor matters!
Anti social behaviour is NOT a minor matter especially when it is directed at pensioner aged people. This is why we pay towards a police force to help vulnerable people feel safe.
Anti-social behaviour (in Manchester as it happened) turned my life upside down. I had to leave a job at the peak of my career (something I will never regain), my health went, I lost thousands on my house and all because the police could do nothing about the drug dealing neighbours because the law is an ass in this country. The Inspector held his head in his hands as he listened to all I was going through and could do nothing; the council manager could not evict their drug dealing tenants without on the spot evidence; the local MP (Anne Coffey) didn’t care if I lived or died. It took four years for the system to imprison this woman – for two years, probably out after six weeks. I have recently come back from living in the Middle East for three years – never felt safer. We could learn a lot from them.
Apparently these days we pay them for nicking people who say nasty things on Twitter.
In that case, Trump should be serving life!
Try not to be such a cock
Well that’s because it’s nice and warm in the station. Too cold to go out, unless it’s Murder.
They don’t even do that. My husband had someone try to ruin his reputation via twitter. When he went to the police he was simply told stay off Twitter then!
You took the words right out of my mouth there Bill, it’s the same in South Yorkshire. Police are not interested in prosecuting unless they actually catch them in the act, which is highly unlikely as there are no foot patrols at all and the only patrol cars I see are when they park up for their breakfast or shopping.
Vast majority of these vandals are teenagers, just goes to show the case for discipline in the home. People keep trying to be best mates with their kids instead of parents.
Ah yes discipline in the house hold, didn’t the Labour Government make that illegal?
YES ! And with the upcoming Labour Government (aka Marxist Regime) we can expect even more legislation that will protect these scumbags (masquerading as Working Class – whatever the hell thats supposed to be).
It is difficult to argue with people like you who are blind to reality. You are obviously happy to see the gap between the rich and working people get wider, to see cuts in services to the old, the young, the disabled. You seem to support a government that ignores tax avoidance by the wealthy and companies, that cuts monies to local authorities and then tells the world that local authorities are to blame. A government who has punished public sector workers for the sins of the global recession and blames the Labour Government for the same international meltdown of business caused by lack of regulation and greed in the finance sectors throughout the world. Gordon Brown was an idiot to claim that the government had ended boom and bust. But this government is claiming that it has ended unemployment through their management. Just look at the problems in homes for the elderly, lack of monies in schools, lack of monies in the NHS. I hate the idea of any extreme government but what do we have now?
bloody hell alan. what kind of people use this website? the comments here are worse than on a typical daily mail story. your comment had a net 7 thumbs downs before i got here, while all the nasty ones have many thumbs ups.
it seems that by wanting to save a few p per litre on petrol (to avoid paying excessive profits to massive corporations who don’t pay enough tax) we have stumbled upon some of the most narrow minded selfish people in the UK. if only we were still allowed to assault our kids in the street then none of this would have happened. oh for the halcyon days when kids got belted in school for getting a maths problem wrong and there was zero crime right?
I think you will find that discipline in schools was outlawed because we were told it was causing people to think violence was ok and was breading violence in the home. That worked out well didn’t it, with domestic violence rocketing? Nobody is saying there was zero crime then, but when they were caught they were properly punished.
rob – open your mind and learn a little. has domestic violence really sky rocketed? or has acknowledgement of it and reporting of it increased?
maybe back in the days when women weren’t allowed to work and everyone was hit constantly the women were too scared to speak up as the public shame of divorce would have been too much with right wing people treating them badly?
thanks for compounding my view though that greedy right wing selfish people have completely misguided views on lots of things and it is this that leads to their stupid opinions.
I couldn’t agree more Alan. I don’t know why complaints about the way the police handle vandalism issues should turn into an attack on the party that isn’t in power! What are the present government doing about these problems?
There are plenty of scum parents already, many on sink estates or drug damaged. The police will not do anything as they consider the case to be low key, besides, they usually spout lack of resources and no officers available. This only perpetuates the problem, as it gives the scum added incentive to carry on as normal, and if caught, the CPS will spout all excuses and the court gives such ridiculous sentences, they walk out laughing.
Exactly – parents have a lot to answer for.
A few years ago my wife used my car to get some shopping in the local Tesco store. On return she found the driver’s door open, and 15 pounds worth of shopping missing.
I reported the incident to the police, and asked the manager of Tesco if I could see the CCTV records – there were none, only a notice claiming that there were cameras to discourage parking beyond the time limit.
I was told that a scene of crime officer would call the next day. They did not attend, when I rang the plods they said that they had decided not to attend as I would not like to have my car covered in finger print dust!
Damage to car was in excess of £1000.
To add insult to injury the police told me that there had been so many episodes of wanton damage to cars at the location they had been regularly patrolling the car park – until the week before my episode?
david – without meaning to sound harsh what do you really want to happen in this situation? you have presumably had a broken window and £15 of shopping stolen. while it’s a great inconvenience to you are the police going to carry out a major investigation to try to recover your £15 worth of shopping? how much tax do you think we would need to pay to maintain such a rigorous service?
report something like this to the police so they have more accurate stats and might prioritise it in future if they see rates going up. but then, i’m afraid, you just have to fix it and get on with your life.
I had several incidents of vandalism when parked outside my home… one consisting of damage to 3 sides of the vehicle plus windscreen and mirrors costing over £4000 to fix
It only stopped when a local councillor was cautioned by the police and told to stop deliberately inciting others
wow that’s a lot !
I had my tyres slashed on my front drive covered by CCTV the person was caught in the act and got 3 months in prison and I got the bill for all 4 tyres.
If they are convicted you can ask for an attachment to pay you back, it will be taken from their wages or benefit
It seems that criminal damage is no longer an offence. We had the roof of our car jumped on by some brain-dead cretin who then jumped off that onto the bonnet seriously denting and scratching both but leaving trainer prints on the panels. When informed, the Police weren’t interested.
I was shot at driving home from my local Tesco. There was a hole through my windscreen although we didn’t find a bullet or other missile inside the car. There were houses down both sides of the road and there was no-one around and I think it came from a bedroom window. I was very shaken but I drove straight to my local police station only 1/4 mile away. I waited at the desk for more than 10 minutes before someone could be bothered to answer the bell. A policewoman came out chewing gum and when I told her what had happened she said they’d had no reports of any similar incidents in the area. She said ‘we’ll keep our eyes open’ I asked if she wanted to see the car and she declined. I was given a crime number and never heard anything more. I footed the bill for a new windscreen. It doesn’t surprise me that vandalism is on the increase I can’t remember when I last saw a policeman on duty walking around anywhere. The police are a disgrace and a complete waste of time and money.
You are lucky, our Chief Constable has closed all police stations to the public, and you can only report things on line or over a phone, via 101. Some of our stations have even been sold off, so we stand no chance in the West Midllands. The only one still open is central PS, where there is no parking, opposite the Children’s Hospital, and no public transport for quite a distance, so nobody bothers. Besides, they are even closing that!
Our Police station cost our town over £ 5.000,000 not that long ago now it is closed and you can only contact the cops by picking up an outside phone and ringing them at the police head office of Lincolnshire, 20 odd miles from my town and if you need a copper they have to come from Lincoln, what a load of bollocks, we are paying out of our council tax for them to look after Lincoln not my home town of Gainsborough.
I have no faith in the police for minor types of crime (see my comment earlier) but I think we need to get things in perspective. The police do get involved in serious crimes such as murder, rapes, paedophilia, serious frauds and trying to trace missing people (especially children) etc.
Perhaps now is the time to find an alternative to using the police for these minor offences. If we have video footage of culprits and they are known, can we not take them to court in a private prosecution? to do this would require money for legal costs but if there was an organisation who suggested that they would do this I would be willing to contribute financially to it.
A police man / woman WALKING a beat, that finished in the seventy’s in my home town, we once had a 6′ x four foot window smashed as we were looking out at our car with the alarm going off, this young barsteward threw himself at our window, I rang the police and a Sargent cop came up as he was riding about our estate, these scumbags were still around our house, he got out of his car and said is it that lot down the road I said yes, he said we dare not arrest them or they will come back and trash your home, and he just drove off, I was gabber flasted,
What do you do when a Sargent copper tells you that.
It appears the majority of these incidents is caused by unemployed or bored juveniles who thinks its fun/a laugh when they are with their mates…a sort of do or dare challenge to keep in with them. That is something l have witnessed quite a few times.
Now if the local youth centres were still open (local authority spending cuts etc) then there would be less likelihood of this.
graham – good answer but sadly most of the selfish posters in this thread would rather see tax funds diverted into a massive nationwide search and prosecution of the perpetrator of the minor damage to their own car. the selfish middle classes of UK are a lovely bunch sometimes.
So Iain are you saying the youth today are so stupid that unless you find something for them to do they will go out and trash everything just for fun. Youth Centres were not necessarily open everyday anyway, so the same thing is going to happen when they are closed for even a day. I think you will find the real reason is they have no fear of authority, because in this soft leftie society nothing ever happens to them, even if they are caught. The very worst than can happen is they end up in a hotel, sorry youth detention centre, where they have more comfort and amenities than they have at home.
hi again rob. so looks like you scrolled through the entire thread to needle my every comment. instead of repeating the nonsensical ‘man down the pub said’ viewpoint on things in life, why don’t you do some proper research and learn about something.
maybe you’ll learn what actually happens to people who are heavily punished for minor vandalism at 15. maybe you’ll learn that people aren’t born inherently bad but people in poorer areas are more likely to end up this way. maybe you’l just learn something, anything and have a greater appreciation of the world we live in.
or maybe you’ll just bury your head in the sand, keep voting tory (to support corporations and mega rich tax dodging) and blaming the poor and immigrants for all the ills in the world. what do you think of trumps new tax cuts for the rich?