Someone stole my Grobag pt.2

Have reposted below as I some how posted this with all the text formatting showing and that makes it a pain to read.

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.

Well done for chasing him down.
Can he not admit to the earlier burglary to mitigate his sentencing?

Nailed.

He'll sing like a canary for the right seed.

nice work!

that's awesome, well done for chasing him and calling the rozzers!

Cool. Well surprised that the rozzers turned up like that. In time as well.

Think you should have clobbered him with a d-lock or something though.

Sweet! nice one mate, i hope you get some compensation/your bag back. He's no Einstein so it's all to play for :D

Cool. Well surprised that the rozzers turned up like that. In time as well.
Catching someone red handed means they get a conviction which means they'll meet some target set by the Dept of Justice.

well done for the chase. brilliant story telling, you had me gripped! sux tho. was hoping for a happier ending to your story. like the guy getting tortured by the police/you and your bag+valuables recovered

excellent work Detective Poly. I'm impressed, by both your actions and account! good luck.

Good to see you pursue him and great to see him nicked.
Sounds like good response time from the cops. Pity it doesn't look good for your bag.
Sounds daft but could you ask the cops to ask him where it is? Or maybe have a little Pantera moment? ie. "just give us.. 5 minutes alone!!" :-)
One broken bone for each minute he fails to reveal the whereabouts of your stuff..

Can he not admit to the earlier burglary to mitigate his sentencing?

Yep, in court plea to have other offences taken into consideration. Means that he will get effectively next to nothing for them and cannot be pulled for them at a later date.

Still, well done on catching him.

did you do any skids?

Who loves you baby

Did the police take finger prints after the first burglary? If they match that proves he was in you house the first time too, if they did not take print from you house until after the second burglary it's no good.

good work, just remember he knows where you live. you have sent him down for the better part of a year.
I know it is a shitty thought but be careful mate.

Wow! Congratualtions, I couldnt imagine a better ending than that. Id be hugely satisfied with the whole event of chasing down the thief, with police turning up at the right time.

Its so rare for that to happen!

In terms of your stuff, theres a chance that your bike parts etc might be knocking about at his "den" still. As I imagine theyd be more difficult to sell on.

Oh, and you actually got house burgaled! buy some locks man. If its a shared house, id keep all my fancy stuff locked metal filing cabinet. not so hard to break open but super-noisy.

he'll just get a slap on a wrist. watching the car theft program on tv the other day, these crooks were stealing millions of ££'s worth of mercs and bmw's. get caught red handed, one gets 2 years jail, another 3 years, the other 12 months. fuck that, why do an honest day of work, when you can earn big ££'s, get sent on government paid holiday with playstation, sky tv.

Sounds like a right old laugh.. until you get stabbed up in jail.

Bring on the jail stabbings!

he'll just get a slap on a wrist. watching the car theft program on tv the other day, these crooks were stealing millions of ££'s worth of mercs and bmw's. get caught red handed, one gets 2 years jail, another 3 years, the other 12 months. fuck that, why do an honest day of work, when you can earn big ££'s, get sent on government paid holiday with playstation, sky tv.

And some edumication!

Sounds like a right old laugh.. until you get forcefully sodomised up in jail.

Are you trying to influence Dogsballs with that?

Don't encourage him to steal cars prav.. he's dangerous enough on a bike.

Has GoldenBalls being reading the Daily Wail again?!

Nice story!
Reminded me of a few years ago when I was living in Hornsey, my flat got broken into in the middle of the day. As the burglars were unloading my TV out onto a flat roof, an observant neighbour spotted them and called the local police. The police then called one of their off duty officers who so happened to live opposite me.
Friendly local bobby then bided his time until they'd loaded their car, then just popped over, knocked on the car window and arrested them both.

PS Upon walking round the house to confirm what was missing, some officer commented on my flatmate's room, saying "Ooh, really sorry mate, they've properly turned this one over". I had to explain that it always looked like that!
Having taken my statement I was then made to unload all my own stuff from the fucking car, the damn cheek of it all...

Did you get to at least kick them in the balls before they were taken to be arse raped?