Cable / copper / metal theft - ongoing problems on the railways and elsewhere

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Agreed.

'victim' was probably the wrong choice of word. Although the culprit was a victim of his own stupidity. A perfect candidate for a Darwin Award.

[Electric train]

Very little sympathy for the victim or those that witnessed his death.

On the other hand, one could say, one has 'very little sympathy for the culprit ... or those that witnessed his death ...' 

Agreed.

'victim' was probably the wrong choice of word. Although the culprit was a victim of his own stupidity. A perfect candidate for a Darwin Award.

Agreed - the perpetrator was a victim of the crime he was executing.   

We have been waiting for such an event to to happen, just wish it was not on one of my projects. 

The damage these criminals cause for a quite a small amount of money is unbelievable and quite frankly the sentencing given out when caught is light compared to the damage because the charge is based on the scrap value.

having said that this person would have died a hideous death

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, Electric train. 

I don't think any of us here are minimising the implications, or the fatal outcome, of such an event: but, the fact of the matter remains, that individual made a conscious decision to break into an electricity sub-station and cut into electrical cables there.  The fact that he suffered an awful death as a result is simply what Network Rail and others have been constantly warning could happen, for years now.

I don't have any answer to this problem - other than our trying to emphasize, yet again, the potentially lethal results of any such railway trespass?

CfN. 

[Mookiemoo]

if he had any intelligence he could - I assume - have earthed the cutters in non conducting material and - as long as not touched the wire before   sheathing in non conducting - would have been ok

Its not rocket science

hence a darwin award should be given

[Electric train]

if he had any intelligence he could - I assume - have earthed the cutters in non conducting material and - as long as not touched the wire before   sheathing in non conducting - would have been ok

Its not rocket science

hence a darwin award should be given

That works for low voltages like 240 volts but not for high voltages like 33,000 volts (the approx energy discharged in this event in less than 1 second was 1,000,000 watts in simple terms enough energy to boil a 1000 kettles)

Chris you are right that this has been waiting to happen and the villains while I would not say they got their just deserts I do not have that much sympathy for them either .............. just been a bad week trying to work a project around this destruction of the equipment by thieves and the fact that one of them lost their life in doing so

[eightf48544]

One thing I notice when I first went to Italy by train is that there was a sign on every O/H mast a rather chilling "Skull and Crossbones" with something like "Piricole de Morte" underneath.

Even to a non Italian speaker the message was clear.

[Bob_Blakey]

I think the rail industry, Network Rail & the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) in particular, may be missing a trick here; I stand to be corrected but I would guess that the incident was only reported in the area around which it occurred. The national broadcasters could surely be persuaded to include this in national bulletins in the, possibly forlorn, hope that at least some of the potential miscreants would be warned off.

Or is this an extremely naive view of human nature?

[Electric train]

I think the rail industry, Network Rail & the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) in particular, may be missing a trick here; I stand to be corrected but I would guess that the incident was only reported in the area around which it occurred. The national broadcasters could surely be persuaded to include this in national bulletins in the, possibly forlorn, hope that at least some of the potential miscreants would be warned off.

Or is this an extremely naive view of human nature?

The incident is only recent there are a lot of "on going inquires"

BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) are due to do a "Crime Watch" program in the near future about metal thefts, they may use this incident.

[Phil]

Shocking story.

[JayMac]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Derbyshire railway cable theft gang jailed

Four members of a gang who cost Network Rail almost ^1m by stealing copper cables from rail lines have been jailed. The men from Heanor and Langley Mill targeted tracks across England, causing train delays and cancellations.

Nottingham Crown Court heard they made more than 150 trips and stole 27 tonnes of cable over an 18-month period. Jailing the men for four years each, the judge said they had potentially put many lives at risk.

Network Rail claimed the crimes cost it ^933,896 in repairs and other charges. The thefts also resulted in train delays totalling more than 320 hours and some cancellations.

Lives endangered

The group's thefts included earthing cables, designed to protect workers repairing the line, the court heard.

Thomas Ingram, 23, of Lockton Avenue, Heanor, Ian Radford, 39, of Starthe Bank, Heanor, David Gatfield, 43, of Stainsby Avenue, Heanor and Scott Clark, 26, of Horsley Crescent, Langley Mill, were each jailed for four years.

They all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal and conspiracy to covert stolen property at a previous hearing.

The judge told them they had put the travelling public in positive danger and said they could have derailed a train, with the horrendous consequence of loss of life.

Lee Bamford, 34, of Calladine Court, Heanor, failed to appear in court and will be sentenced later. Martin Harriman, 23, of Watkinson Street, Heanor, received an eight month sentence suspended for two years and must do 150 hours unpaid work.

Detectives found the gang visited four metal recyclers in Ilkeston, Alfreton and Langley Mill, in order to sell on the stolen cable, often using false names and identification. Their investigation traced the gang's activity back to 2008 and the men were charged in September 2010.

Ch Supt Mark Smith of British Transport Police said: "The criminal behaviour of this gang resulted in countless problems for commuters as the rail industry was seriously compromised by the thefts which were carried out in a huge geographical area - from Watford in the south to Stockport in the north."

Outside court he added: "This group of individuals were extremely determined. They had gone to considerable lengths of organisation in terms of equipping themselves with maps of the areas, doing reconnoitring missions, using satellite navigation technology to find the locations to attack - a significant operation."

and.... Also from the BBC:

Railway cable thefts ringleader jailed

The 34-year-old ringleader of a Derbyshire gang which caused travel chaos by stealing copper cables from rail lines has been jailed. Lee Bamford, of Calladine Close, Heanor, was sentenced at Derby Crown Court for four-and-a-half years.

He ran an operation that targeted tracks across England, causing delays and cancellations and costing ^1m.

Bamford pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal and conspiracy to covert stolen property, at a previous hearing. He was jailed for four years and six months for both counts, to run concurrently.

Network Rail claimed the crimes cost it ^933,896 in repairs and other charges.

'Thousands' affected

Detectives found the gang visited metal recyclers in Derbyshire in order to sell on the stolen cable, often using false names and identification.

The other members of the gang were sentenced last month but Bamford failed to appear in court.

Det Insp Terry Pearce, who led the investigation for British Transport Police, said: "Whilst many criminals see cable theft as a victimless crime, the reality is that it is an attack on communities and the very infrastructure that keeps the country operating. Without vital rail services many people cannot go about their daily business which means work hours are lost, appointments are missed and important visits - perhaps to hospitals or loved ones - cannot be made. Bamford and his cohorts prevented thousands of people from making such journeys and attacked the railway to make what was, for all the effort and time put into the thefts, a relatively modest amount."

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

It was a major police operation - over two nights, British Transport Police scoured the West Coast Mainline and Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

They used a helicopter, a specially-adapted "quiet train", thermal imaging equipment, motion detectors, police dogs and motorbikes for Operation Elementary.

The reason? People have been stealing copper signal and power cables, causing havoc on the rail network.

It is just one example of a crime wave plaguing the country - scrap metal theft.

The problem is simple: international metals prices are being driven up and up by the insatiable demand of China and other booming economies.

And with the prices for recyclable metal also hitting new highs, this age-old crime is becoming endemic.

A quarter of Hertfordshire lost its broadband connection last year because of telecoms cable theft.

Thefts from the nation's electricity and gas infrastructure are currently running at double the rate of a year ago, according to Tony Glover of industry group Energy Networks. "It is pathetic, quite frankly," he says. "As a crime, it is sometimes as little as ^5, ^10, ^20, never more than ^100 worth in terms of the value of the copper."

Yet the disruption can be enormous, he says. In one incident the lights went out at 94,000 homes in Kent because someone tried to steal high voltage transmission cables from under a bridge in Dartford.

It is a similar story on the railways.

In March, six men were convicted of cutting cabling at sites selected using the internet - their activity caused nearly ^1m worth of repair costs and 322 hours of train delays.

The problem took hold on the railways five years ago in parts of Yorkshire long associated with heavy industry and metal scrappage, Network Rail spokesman Rachel Lowe says. "It's by far the worst region even today," she notes.

But now it has spread across the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), with Network Rail estimating that the cumulative cost as of late 2010 stood at ^35m. In London the Central Line was affected earlier this year and the planned Docklands Light Railway extension has been delayed by repeated thefts from the construction site.

The crime can also be dangerous. Copper gas piping is often stolen from outside houses, causing an explosion in one case last March, and overnight disappearance of manhole covers and road traffic signs are also common.

Moreover, the perpetrators often take suicidal risks themselves - one would-be thief was killed on the railway last year, as were three in separate incidents at electricity substations.

Given the high voltages involved, Mr Glover of Energy Networks says those killed were not so much electrocuted as "burned and blown up". He worries that they are now going after governor stations - the gas industry's equivalent of substations - offering a "potentially explosive combination" of high pressure gas and electricity cables.

All of which begs the question, who would risk their lives for such small gains and with such apparent disregard for the general public?

"In the main, they are very small-scale, amateur," says Mr Glover. "These opportunistic thieves often haven't a clue about the dangers they are taking on."

They deliver the stolen metal to scrap yards in the UK which wilfully turn a blind eye. He says some openly advertise themselves as "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" services.

Police say the bulk of this petty crime is driven by drug addiction or other forms of substance abuse.

"These are habitual criminals seeking routine profits to fund a fairly haphazard, itinerant lifestyle," says Superintendent Paul Brogden of the British Transport Police.

The railway thieves convicted last month spent their earnings on drugs and McDonald's.

But there is a growing trend of more sophisticated gangs, Mr Glover says, for example stealing high voltage overhead power cables from the national grid.

Some foreign gangs are thought to be shipping their loot abroad, to be laundered through continental scrap dealers.

Home-grown criminals are also learning on the job: "Once criminals find a lucrative market, they will refine their tactics over time," notes Superintendent Brogden. And he says they have been passing their tactics on.

A fraternity of 50 to 60 operators in Essex was originally spawned when a northern gang relocated after their old stamping ground started to be policed more heavily.

So what can be done? One solution is to replace copper and lead with cheaper alternatives.

The gas industry is switching to steel pipes, while aluminium wiring is coming into use for electricity.

Surrey County Council now replaces missing road signs with plastic ones.

Another technique is to make stolen metal more clearly identifiable, for example by embossing it.

Rail and utility firms are coating critical pieces of metal with Smartwater. Developed by a UK firm, it is an indelible paint, only visible under ultraviolet light, that contains a chemical code unique to the item being protected.

"The Smartwater brand is very well known to the criminal fraternity," says company spokesman David Reynolds, who claims the product deters thefts.

Industries and the police set up a metals theft taskforce last year to share intelligence. The taskforce is working with the scrap metal industry to help legitimate dealers spot stolen goods.

And it wants to raise public awareness of the crime, something police shied away from before, for fear of encouraging more thefts. But now - with the crime having gone nationwide - the genie is out of the bottle.

"Perpetrators need to know they are not only putting their own lives at risk, but also entering a very well-policed environment," says Superintendent Brogden.

Yet Mr Glover, who represents the energy industry on the taskforce, is not optimistic. "We've had three to four years of initiatives based on policing the issue and they have failed," he says. "The existing legislation is literally out of the age of Steptoe and Son," he says.

The 1964 Scrap Metal Dealers Act gives the police the right to seize stolen metal, but not to shut down dealerships caught receiving it. The police are pushing for the right to raid dealers without a warrant.

"There are very good lines of communication from certain dealers to the thieves," says Superintendent Brogden.

They also want to ban scrap merchants from paying in cash. But the scrap metal industry takes a different view.

"Imposing new police powers or restrictions on our members in untimely, unwelcome and will not help to combat the issue of of metal theft," says Ian Hetherington, who heads up the British Metals Recycling Association.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) press release:

British Transport Police officers are appealing for information and witnesses after a man suffered burns to his hands in an apparent attempt to steal cable from the railway line in Nuneaton.

Launching an appeal for information into the incident at Stockingford, officers warned members of the public that the incident highlighted the dangers associated with cable theft.

As well as the dangers of trespassing on the railway line, many of the cables targeted by thieves have 50,000 volts running through them and anyone who attempts to steal the materials risk being electrocuted or badly burned.

Detective Sergeant Graham Moss, part of Op Leopard ^ BTP^s dedicated team targeting cable thieves, said the incident was reported to police shortly before 12.30am on Monday 26 April.

^Officers attended the railway line in the Beverley Avenue area and discovered live railway cable had been cut at the scene. Evidence at the scene also suggests that whoever had attempted to steal the cable will have suffered burns to their hands as a result of the high voltage running through the cable.

^I would therefore appeal to anyone who knows someone who has suffered burns since the early hours of the morning of Monday 26 April, or who has information which they believe can assist the investigation, to come forward in strict confidence.

"This incident illustrates what a dangerous environment the railway can be. It^s essential that we find this person as they may also need hospital treatment for their injuries."

Network Rail and the independent charity Crimestoppers offer a ^1,000 reward for information which leads to the successful conviction of cable thieves.

[ChrisB]

Hmmm - I hope he gets locked up too. A strong message needs sending to these thieves.

[anthony215]

ow well, hope the idiot doesnt decide to sue. If they do the judge should throw it out.

[broadgage]

Hmmm - I hope he gets locked up too. A strong message needs sending to these thieves.

Yes, and made to pay for the damage as well !
IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) cable theft is not taken seriously enough by either the police or the courts.
Apart from the costs that these thefts impose on the railway, persistant theft has been used as an argument against more electrification.

And slightly O/T, a growing number of power cuts are caused by cable theft in rural areas.