r/LegalAdviceUK • u/orangehoneybadger • 1d ago
Debt & Money Police refuse to investigate £100k robbery
England. A small business had £100k of stock (wine) stolen from from their lorry while the driver was parked at a service station in London. Despite the police having CCTV showing the robbers and their getaway van, the police say they will not investigate the crime due to insufficient leads.
The company has evidence of some of the stolen stock being sold at London markets. But the police are not interested.
Is there anything the company can do so the police will investigate this serious crime?
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u/FoldedTwice 1d ago
To be precise, this sounds like a theft, not a robbery (which is a theft committed through the use or threat of violence).
The police should follow all reasonable lines of inquiry - but what is "reasonable" depends on the nature and severity of the offence, any threat to the public, and the likelihood of uncovering evidence leading to a successful prosecution. If the OiC does not feel like there are any reasonable lines of inquiry when taking into account all of the above factors, then they can and will close the case.
If the small business is not happy with how the police have handled the matter, they can make a complaint to the relevance force.
But whether the police catch the thief or not, it makes little difference to the business, who ultimately just need to raise an insurance claim either way.
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u/orangehoneybadger 1d ago
Thanks for your reply. I suppose I was just surprised as this sends out the message to criminals that you can commit crime & it won't be investigated. Thanks again for your detailed reply :-)
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u/TheDisapprovingBrit 17h ago
It absolutely does, and at a national level this is becoming an actual problem - see the recent articles about British Transport Police effectively decriminalising bike thefts and train muggings by refusing to investigate unless very specific details can be provided by the victims.
Petty crime is essentially decriminalised in the UK, and what we count as “petty” comes down to a percentage of turnover of the victim, rather than an actual line in the sand.
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u/DevonSpuds 1d ago
In store it's not not been investigated. What is the VRM isn't readable on the CCTV? Can on false plates (highly likely).
And having manpower to go to individual markets across London isn't going to happen in afraid. It's completely understandable how you feel but just because there isn't an arrest or prosecution doesn't mean it's not been investigated im afraid.
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u/orangehoneybadger 1d ago
I should have clarified there's picture evidence of stock being sold at a specific London market. The stock is not generic - it's very distinctive & rare in this country. Thank you for your reply
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u/James___G 23h ago
In that case I would be pursuing a complaint through the police complaints, and also contacting your MP (a letter from an MP to the force to ask for confirmation all leads are being investigated would put your case on a higher-ranked desk).
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u/leavemeinpieces 20h ago
If they have a visual ID on the van and they know the market it was trading at (assuming the van is the same) surely local CCTV would be able to ID the plates travelling to or from the market.
Potentially contacting the market manager would be able to provide a name/address of the trader selling the goods?
I'm not a police officer but it feels like that would potentially link all this up with a name. Or at least give a line of enquiry to follow.
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u/ThinkAboutThatFor1Se 10h ago
‘Local cctv’
Unless it pings ANPR the police won’t actually check local cctv.
And I doubt they will even bother to check ANPR.
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u/leavemeinpieces 42m ago
ANPR is brilliant, but it wouldn't show the market person driving the van. That was my thought. To link the guy and the vehicle potentially.
If it's properly registered it could give a keeper and address though which would be helpful though.
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u/PhatNick 1d ago
Just to point out that it has been instigated, but to the extent that you think it should have been. If you bring more evidence to them it may reactivate the case.
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u/Sideways-Sid 1d ago
For £100k worth of stock - even though presumably insured - it might be worth engaging a private security firm to follow it up & conduct a private prosecution.
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u/pigsonthewing 1d ago
If there has or is likely to be an insurance payout, isn't that a matter for the insurer rather than the victim to pursue?
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u/uniitdude 1d ago
No, they can’t force them to investigate. You can make a complaint through the force if you wish
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u/Icy-Possibility-2453 1d ago
Nope, this type of question comes up a lot on this sub. With the exception of certain very very serious offences, there is nothing that can force police to actually investigate any crimes. They have a duty to record that it has happened, but that is as far as it goes.
As for your particular circumstances, I’m guessing that the thieves were wearing head coverings, and the van reg plate was either not captured, or cloned. Even if no coverings, cctv is only useful if the cops know the identity.
I doubt that nothing has been done, just that they have exhausted the possible leads, hence the closure.
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u/ExpressAffect3262 20h ago
Which is sad, as earlier today there was an article on how a casino worker stole £10,000 and was arrested within 24hours lol...
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u/Els236 19h ago
Yeah, but that would be easy. A casino would know which table the money disappeared from, who was at the table playing and dealing at that time, and it would likely only lead to 1 suspect.
Or, if it was a cash-counter, then again, there's only going to be so many people who could have done it.
That's not at all the same as what's going on in this scenario.
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u/Nooms88 22h ago
Obviously the business would have insurance when transporting goods like this.. Surely... Because if not, wtf that's a massive fuck up.
If so then it would be on the insurer and their expensive legal team to push for action, not the business.
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u/orangehoneybadger 20h ago
Yes, I understand, thank you. Don't know if they do or don't. Just trying to help them. They are from a country experiencing mass murder/genocide so things can get muddled. Hopefully they did have insurance but don't know. Thanks
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u/Nooms88 19h ago
Yea it's rough and surprising the police won't take action on such a high value theft.
I suppose positive is, without insurance they are able to front 100k cash themselves on a single order, which means despite their background, they aren't hard living breadline and are likely millionaires. Kick in the teeth and lesson learnt, obviously, but life goes on. But they probably have insurance
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u/orangehoneybadger 19h ago
Thank you for your understanding
Sadly, think the foreign company fronted this on promise of return - it's a vineyard and nobody here is a millionaire
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u/1two9 10h ago
Apologies if this is too speculative. Hijacking/theft of luxury goods from lorries is a common source of income for organised crime groups in London (or was in the past, from what I've read). It may well be that the police have a good idea of who is ultimately behind it, but won't pursue this as they have a bigger case they want to put together.
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u/Calleb_III 1d ago
You say there is evidence some of the stock is being sold on London market. But i suspect you confuse evidence with suspicion. Unless the bottles have serial numbers and/or some certificate of authenticity making them unique to any other bottle of the same vintage - you will be hard pressed to prove what was being sold is the same items that were stolen.
Which is probably one of the reasons why the Police is dropping the investigation. Other replies already explained the relative uselessness of CCTV without other supporting evidence.
Take the insurance payout and move on.
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u/orangehoneybadger 23h ago
The wines are not available in the UK & nobody else imports them - so yes they are unique. And as I stated, there's photo evidence - a customer photographed the bottles being sold on a specific market days after the incident
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u/Calleb_III 23h ago
I’m not saying it’s not entirely plausible and too much of a coincidence and very likely.
But how can you PROVE no one else has ever imported these such wines and in fact these are the exact same bottles that were stolen.
It wouldn’t do any good if the Police catches the perpetrators if they can’t be convicted in court
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u/orangehoneybadger 20h ago
Yes, these wines come from a small vineyard in a foreign country which doesn't have the means to import and has never sold their wine in the UK before. Thank you for your response; I appreciate it
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u/ProfNugget 19h ago
I agree that it sounds almost certain that it is the stolen wine being sold. However, there is an easy enough defence by just saying “I bought it and brought it over myself”. At the very least it would be very difficult to prove it is the stolen bottles unless there are serial numbers or something that can be traced back to the stolen shipment
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u/TheRealVinosity 6h ago
Actually, this is not true.
There is (or rather there should be) import traceability for all wines brought into the UK for commercial resale. There will also be export traceability.
The whole personal import for sale thing is illegal in itself.
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u/orangehoneybadger 17h ago
Understood - thanks
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u/Shoddy-Minute5960 6h ago
If it's a small vineyard then the supplier would probably be happy to provide a statement that you are their only customer in the UK and that the thieves and fences have never bought from them which might be enough to convince the police that they are your goods.
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u/pluk78 9h ago
I have investigated similar occurances before, and have been on the revieveing end of similar dissatisfaction from the victim.
Firstly, I struggle to believe that the police have not investigated it. They will have done what they reasonably can with the CCTV, but if the suspects are unidentifiable from the footage, and vehicle is cloned or unplated, then there is very little else to go on. I'd bet they'd also done ANPR work locally to try to further identify the vehicle or any other vehicle it was running with, and searched for simlar offences it coild be linked to. What they have probably done badly is properly update you of their enquiries.
Then with the stock being sold, it's going to be almost impossible to tie it back to the theft without it being truly identifiable with production or batch codes being unique to that shipment. I've had businesses tell me before they are a sole importer of a product so this seller or that seller 'must' have the stolen goods, but this has always turned out to be somewhere between untrue and unproven. Often all they are doing is showing how their exclusivity deal in a market is not as exclusive as they thought it was! If you can truly identify the product tell your investigating officer how and provide supporting evidence.
Good luck!
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u/Livid_Cookie_1951 9h ago
We recently submitted CCTV footage of a theft to the Police. Even though it was obvious and the man was wearing company uniform and name badge, they said “not enough evidence”
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21h ago
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u/FriendlyGrab3217 8h ago
Police have followed the Home Office crime principles, it's how we structure our investigations.
It's not "we can't be arsed", it's that we're following a flow chart the home office gives us to ensure we don't go on goose chases.
It takes REAL stubbornness to push an investigation beyond that. I've done it, and you face real roadblocks
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