"Spider" wrote in message
...

I would never doubt you, but please be careful!

Ah! The nosy old biddy down the road.

Someone who is willing to steal stuff from under the owner's nose,
might
not take too kindly to being challenged and may just hit out.




In a genuinely tricky situation, I call on the police and extra
witnesses. We run a good watch scheme here. Anyway, triggering a
panic button and our alarm system (if need be) would soon frighten any
intruder or thief.

Does every house have them? How would you cope outside if you
challenged some men moving stuff? I hope you would never think to do
that alone???



Many of our houses have alarms, but if I saw something deeply suspicious
with active villains, the chances are our CCTV would pick them up. If I
could raise extra witnesses, that would help (but I refuse to accept any
vigilanteism in our road), otherwise I would trigger my own house alarm by
using the panic button - if I was that worried (I've never had to do that
yet). However, with such an incident, I would simply dial 999 and let the
police come and catch them red-handed. I probably wouldn't need to
challenge the villains.

I hope you have more luck that a guy on the radio today who was saying he
waited on the phone for an hour when he tried to report a burglary at a
neighbours house. A week later, a community policeman came to take a
statement

Often we see suspicious behaviour and take a look outside. If I challenge
someone, I usually just ask if they're looking for someone or something,
or will say "Is that your car?" if they're hanging around. There's no need
to get very close. I can call from my front steps if I wish. Sometimes I
just challenge over-grown kids because they've trespassed on private
property. They're often a bit 'lippy'. One asked me if I was accusing
them of stealing (there were 4 of them). I simply said "No, I'm not, but
if you enter someone's property and take something without asking their
permission, then it's likely you are comitting theft". This is not
accusatory (they all know their rights!), but lets them know you're
watching them and are prepared to act. That is usually quite sufficient.

I am sure you know what you are doing and how to take good care of
yourself.

Just reverting back to gardening, when we had plant thieves in our
road, our CCTV camera footage helped the police catch the villains
involved, which was most satisfying. I doubt they'll be back!

Excellent


We think so. The main thing is to drive crime away from our road, which
can be done sensibly and safely. Just twitching a curtain or opening the
front door and letting 'them' know they've been seen is quite enough to
let them know we have an active Watch scheme. We do rather more than just
put up stickers! ;~).

Obviously that makes a huge difference) Well done


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