Someone stole my Grobag pt.2

Had a bit of drama with this yesterday, so thought I'd post an update.

Getting home from work last night I pull up to my front door, was just about to get off my bike when some complete stranger opens my front door and walks out carrying a holdall, looks like the bastard who burgled me yesterday had come back for more! In retrospect wish I could have come up with something a bit stronger, but all I can think of to say is, "what are you doing coming out of my house?" He doesn’t have the presence of mind to wittily reply, “Isn’t it obvious? Robbing you, you daft git!”, but instead grunts and walks past me before running up the road.

This clearly demonstrates that he’s no Einstein either though, because, in case he hadn’t noticed I’m on a bike, so he most unlikely to outrun me. I momentarily stop to consider the fact that he looks like he might have a bit of a heroin habit, this isn’t me being a bit of a stereotyping Daily Mail reader, I worked for almost 10 years as a front line drugs worker. So I stop, consider and decide (in my professional opinion) bugger that, I’m not letting him get away. So I give chase, on my bike.

I follow round a corner where he stops and turns to face me. At this point I do a spot of risk assessment and recognising that if this gets physical he’s going to win ( I may be pissed off, but he looks desperate and I have no illusions about my own macho-ness), so stop at a safe distance and ask him, “what were you doing in my house?” He says, “nothing”, yeah right! He runs off again. About this time it occurs to me that a bit of Police back-up might not be such a bad idea so I pull out my mobile and dial 999 before pedaling off, again in hot pursuit. In the heat of the moment I can’t remember the friggin street name, it’s round the bloody corner from home, but no I can’t bloody remember it, so I have to cycle to the top of the road to check the road sign.

By the time I’ve explained to the police operator exactly where I am I’ve lost sight of the criminal, bugger, it looks like he’s ducked into one of the alley ways between the houses. Pretty sure I’ve lost him I cycle to the end of the road to see if I can see him again and, joy of joys, I catch sight of him crossing the road. Thus far I’ve been cycling up the road one handed, phone in the other hand, giving the police operator a running a commentary.

Now you’re all going to think I’m a complete wuss, but people cycling on main roads while talking on a mobile phone really piss me off, while we’re going to do way less damage (and more than likely to ourselves) if it’s dangerous for drivers, it’s just as dangerous for us. Bizarrely it also occurs to me that it’s probably a little unwise to blatantly break the law (cycling while talking on the phone) while talking to a police operator. So I dismount, dash across the road, in front of a bloody bus (don’t want to get mown down cycling and talking on the phone, but more than happy to get run over as a pedestrian because I am, after all, in hot pursuit of a criminal), nip into the side street laughing boy has turned into and remount my bicycle, again keeping up my running commentary to the police operator.

By now my quarry has realised I’m still following him, up ahead the road turns to left and as I reach the bend in the road I find that once again I’ve lost him. I cycle the 20 odd meters to the end of the road, look left and right but can’t see him. He can’t be that fast, he must be hiding between the houses again, so I turn around and cycle back to the bend in the road.

As I approach the bend, it dawns on me that this bloke will by now have cottoned onto the fact that I’m not giving up easily, it also occurs to me that moments after he realises this he might decide the only answer is to clobber me, this isn’t a good thing. Fortunately I don’t have to give this too much thought as just as I arrive at the bend I see two police cars with blue lights going coming up the road from the other direction. I flag them down and confirm, yes, I am in hot pursuit of a criminal. One drives off around the block to see if they can find him while the other parks up and three police officers get out to search between the houses to see if he’s hiding there and within ten minutes they find him, HURRAH!!! Got him!!!!!

Three hours later having completed my minutely detailed statement I leave the police station and head for home. They’re probably just being nice to me, but both investigating officers tell me it’s the best statement they’ve ever read. General consensus is that having been caught bang to rights like this, with a bag full of my gear and with my having been able to give such a clear account of what happened, that our boy is going dooown. Promise I’ll rediscover my more liberal credentials over the weekend, but momentarily my concern is that, seeing the writing on the wall, he’ll plead guilty and get a lighter sentence, bastard!

Apparently though he’s known and has form, the police are going to search his address later, but last time they searched there they found nothing. Consensus is that he’s a half competent criminal and good at dumping the evidence, so I’m most unlikely to recover my (beloved) bag. Also there’s nothing to concretely link him with the previous burglary, so he’s got everything to lose by fessing up to it and no reason to say where he dumped it. Bastard, bastard, bastard!

So warm happy feeling around having caught him, but still big sad hole where my bag should be. Now that I know he ducks and dives into local alleyways I’m going to go out and have a last mooch around to see if I can find where he dumped it, but I’m not hopeful! Will let you all know if I do.