At 55 seconds you see a guy in a grey hoodie approach my car. After he goes out of sight he gets into my car and at 1 min 11 seconds you hear it start!. He then manoeuvres (damaging the nearside rear agaist the wall - thanks) around the bollard in front of it and races off.
90 seconds after the blue Audi first drives past it, and 30 seconds after he approaches it, it is gone.
How I discovered the theft and the 999 call
I was sitting in a log cabin in the garden about 20 feet away. I didn’t hear the car start but I heard it race off as my engine has a distinctive sound (supercharged 5 litre V8). If he hadn’t roared off (stupidly) I don’t know how long it would have taken me to discover the theft.
At 12.11pm I dialled 999. It took about 10 minutes until I could speak to someone as they were handling a lot of calls. They were trying to put me through to West Midlands Police, then Staffordshire Police, then back to West Midands, then on the fourth number they tried, a lady answered. The total call time was 11 minutes.
That’s not the fault of the Police but obviously a lack of resources.
The Tracker
The car is fitted with a standard Land Rover tracker.
The LR App reported that they drove 1.1 miles in 3 minutes then parked up (I was still waiting to be put through on the 999 call at that point).
When I saw the address on the App showing where it was parked, I rang 999 again at 12.31pm to tell the police. That called was answered more quickly and took 4 minutes in total.
Virtually at the same time the Police were ringing me to tell me that they had found the contents of the boot of my car and the car’s tracker as a concerned member of the public had reported men acting suspiciously in a small car park next to some maisonettes. They also took down the reg number of the blue Audi (which was not surpringly a cloned plate).
So within about 5 minutes of my car being stolen the tracker had been removed. The traffic cop told me that Land Rover always put them in the same place so the thieves know where to remove them! It is presumably in the boot area and that’s why they chucked everything on the floor to get to it.
So it’s pretty pointless having a manufacturer’s tracker.
I didn’t think I would ever see it again, cue a visit to the pub to drown sorrows.
The security bollard and the keys
We have two cars parked side by side on our drive, both with a security bollard in front of them.
My partner was out in her car when this happened so one bollard was down. We had thought about always making sure both were up even when just one car was on the drive but it was daytime, my bollard was up and my keys were in a Faraday pouch (more on that below) so nothing to worry about! (how much are we kicking ourselves about that now ).
We have two keys to my car, my partner was miles away with one of them and the second was in its Faraday pouch in the house; so how did they start the car?
Faraday pouch
We have two, one for each set of car keys. We always thought that would prevent thieves accessing the signal from the keys to steal our cars.
I have just tested one of them with our other car. With the keys in the pouch near the car I was able to open its door - so the pouch is useless! I have seen comments saying that they wear out!, so I’ve ordered two new ones but will test them regularly.
Found! recovered and why we had to let the tyres down
At 8pm one of the Traffic cops we had met earlier, when recovering the contents of the boot, rang me to say that they had found the car - I couldn’t believe it! He’s a legend! Apparently they had been looking for it all afternoon and on the off chance they drove into this car park, which is hidden from the main road, to take a look and there it was. Thieves will often park a car up for a couple of days while the fuss dies down and to check whether its got another tracker. I would love to see their face when they return for it!
We grabbed a car key and headed straight over in an Uber to find it parked in the car park behind some flats, 2.1 miles from where we live.
