Where are coppers when it comes to copper theft?
On the 20.48 from Liverpool to Euston over the weekend, the train was delayed by an hour and diverted from its normal course. For the second time in a week, thieves had stolen large portions of the signaling wire – in this case from an area around Lichfield.
In high summer, the Berkshire village of Kintbury lost all telephone communications for more than a week, after thieves broke into the main exchange switching box and removed the wiring. Two incidents in which I happened to be one of many ‘victims’. The common ingredient – copper.
I had the good fortune to board the Liverpool train with a Network Rail work gang. They described the scale of copper stealing that is now consuming the network.
One orange clad worker described how the gangs come alongside the track, put an axe through the cable ducting, severing the copper, and then drive hundreds of metres down the line, put the axe through the ducting again and then simply drag and roll the wire into the back of a pick-up truck.
Our society is so dependent upon copper wiring that it is everywhere. It is everywhere in an age when worldwide copper commodity prices have gone through the roof. Voracious China is consuming much of all the newly mined copper.
By definition, much of the UK’s vast threadwork of copper telephony and signaling wire is in remote spots many miles from police surveillance. No one knows the true scale of what is happening. But anecdotally it is happening all over the country every week and the damage is costing the economy millions of pounds.
MP Graham Jones tells me on Twitter that he is trying to get the Metal Theft Act reformed to uprate the paltry fines available to the courts for copper theft.
By definition this is a remote and difficult crime for the media to follow and report. But my sense from my own limited exposure to it is that this is a serious economic threat to UKplc. The work gang on the Liverpool train told me that these scrap metal villains work in gangs and that some have links to international organized crime groups.
Follow on Twitter @JonSnowC4
Related links:
FactCheck: Why copper theft is the perfect crime
Rising metal theft hits UK churches and transport
Dramatic video of cable theft blaze
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There are 19 comments on this post
Where indeed are the “coppers”.It is a valid question,maybe not quite so much in this theft of copper,but in normal everyday policing.They no longer attend thefts from vehicles ,unless you threaten to contact “Littlejohn”.They prefer to prosecute victims rather than criminals.They will pull anyone off the street ,to give themselves time indoors and off the street.
The bosses are full of their own importance and no longer Policemen.They should be retitled “politically correct enforcement officers”
As for the theft of copper,how do you stop it?It only needs a little ingenuity and thought,to combat all scrap metal theft.The scrap has to go through registered dealers,so every transaction of scrap should take place only on production of personal data i.e. driving licence or other photo identification.All depositors should also be photographed.
I was not aware that there was a specific offence of theft of copper, but the penalty for theft should be a sufficient deterrent if correctly imposed
I have heard people are buying MOT failure cars from the local papers and driving straight to the scrap yard and doubling their money.
It isn’t something which immediately brings to mind the vision of a thief, but I suppose along with the slate removers and other basic commodities this brings a good price but who do they sell it to ?
Jon,
I hope the criminals are caught and arrested.
But however much copper they’ve stolen it won’t equate to one millionth of one fiftieth of one percent of what capitalism has stolen from societies across the world.
Mind you, as everyone knows, capitalist thieves are scarcely ever arrested, and in any event not before they have been lavishly praised as “entrepreneurs,” “creators of wealth” and “business geniuses.”
At least with a Lichfield copper thief you know the material will get sold back for reuse. With neocon politicians and spivs the ill gotten gains go nowhere except in to an offshore account. And mainstream media of course will continue mostly to ignore the billionaire and millionaire spivs while pillorying small time crooks when travel arrangements get mildly disrupted.
But that’s the kind of extremist neocon society we have. No surprise there, then.
PHILLIP,I love your view of Capitalists,but i wonder how you live!! If you are a pensioner like myself,you would be glad that the Capitalists produce enough money for governments to be able to pay a pension .
If you are a state worker, once again you will be glad they produce enough money for government to be able to manage a public sector and pay their pensions.
If you work for a Capitalist company , at least you have a productive job and help pay our pensions and the jobs of the public sector.If you are unemployed ,you are lucky we have a Private sector to help support you.
I agree that there are Capitalists who have abused the system and they need dealing with.Not least the bankers,but in your diatribe against all Capitalists and Capitalist societies i never see you spell out a viable alternative.
Phillip i love your diatribes against the Capitalist system and Capitalist societies.
I wonder how you manage to live.
If you are employed by the state or have a state pension,or are unemployed, you only live curtesy of the Capitalist system which produces the cash to pay for such amenities.
Or perhaps you are employed within the Capitalist system itself.Whatever all require the benefits of that system.
I never see you proposes any alternatives as someone like myself who acknowledge there are excesses and certainly elements one would call criminal would love to see a crack down .
Still you always give me a laugh with your rants.
Phillip- your beliefs about capitalism are quaint and irrelevant – do you by any chance work for the police?
Our cops are working tirelessly towards the complete breakdown of civilisation, law and order, all those ‘constructs’ that people like you (who have enjoyed all the benefits that capitalism brings) despise. So don’t worry, you will soon be living in the kind of country you long for so much.
But of course, it is people like you who will be the first to complain.
In my flood defence day job, I often work closely with major electricity power companies. I have heard incredible stories about people risking their lives when entering substations to steal copper. It is a regular occurrence and doesn’t seem to go away.
I see the same reports coming in from Swedish media.
recently, a priest had to get buckets for a leaking church roof one morning. It was not until he went on the roof itself he noticed that the whole roof was in fact gone. Stolen overnight.
As you say, this is not an easy phenomenon to report on, let alone solve. I think I good idea would be to target the metal scrap companies, initially. If something could be done to regulate and create a lot of red tape (copper wire?) when it comes to the actual purchasing process – that might help. What would be the point of stealing something you are unlikely to sell on? This requires non-corrupted metal scrap dealers, of course…
One for Dispatches, I think! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Agree that this – and other metal theft, including lead – is a suitable topic for Dispatches. Neighbours in my north London borough had lead-flashing removed from the back of their house recently.
Yes, and metal theft is not only a case of serious economic threat to the UK (or any other country for that matter).
As with flooding, it can also mean a serious security threat to our infrastructure.
The successful theft of railway signalling cable is quite baffling – if only because it is simple to detect while the theft is happening.
In the world of e-communications it is common to set up a ‘ping’, an otherwise inactive signal which is immediately returned from the other end of the line – if the line is still there. If the ‘ping’ returns, you know the line is working fine.
If you send a ‘ping’ every 10 seconds, then any break (or theft) is reported within 10 seconds and the section of cable can be immediately identified, enabling instant dispatch of staff/police to the target area while the thieves are still on site. It could also immediately trigger CCTV in the locality to obtain evidence.
So why don’t they use the ‘ping’ technique?
Nevermind the copper theft.
What about the case of the missing England?
Which occurred tonight in the Gove interview.
These University Technical Colleges are a great idea but both Jon Snow and Michael Gove kept referring to ‘the country’ without identifying the country and then to cap it all Gove finally said something like ‘throughout the UK from Newcastle to Plymouth’!
Which you will note is actually England only.
Let is be clear, Goves educational remit extends only as far as England, not the devolved mainland countries of Scotland and Wales and this should be made absolutely clear to viewers at the outset.
English people need to realise that this is anything but a ‘United Kingdom’ in the political sense.
I agree JOHN, perhaps it is time we were three separate nations and they raise their own money
Does jon nsow travel forst class vigin cabins?.
I’d love to know his attitusde to the H2 controversy;
rtghe last time I was on Virgin trains in 2005 , Suton to birmingham was less than 90 minutes one way.
This is quick?; High speeds ony cause accidents. Watcht eh railway children. In an emergency stopping is impossible.
To set the record straight – the Lichfield incident Jon refers to turned out to be a technical fault which Network Rail had initially believed to be cable theft. British Transport Police investigated and found no criminal activity is believed to have taken place on this occasion.
Thank goodness the police are taking the threat of terrorist ice-cream parlor photography seriously.
GO Jon Snow and C4 News. You are smart guys.
What about career theft? I’ve been waiting almost a year for the OIA to review a case I sent to them last December after being delayed for a year previous to that by the University in question. Who regulates the regulators? I’m 25 months in to waiting on an answer about a discrimination case from teacher training. It all started in the midlands and has since ruined my life. I’ve moved to London to try and get work but now have to relocate because I couldn’t find investment or an employer. I’ve met someone very special (girlfriend) but now I have to go back to N. Ireland to try and rebuild my life again. High unemployment is one thing – but when you are unfairly dismissed from training, silenced and delayed for over 2 years it has to be recognised that something is seriously wrong with our education system. Passive racism, socio-economic oppression and lack of legal power means that an unrecognised ethnic minority (Northern) Irish get brushed under the carpet and underpaid because people do nothing about it. I think if you were to do the math you would find this effects many other races in the working class demographic. We need to protect educated working class people. Help!
Be good to see more coverage of the Care Commission report on the NHS’s treatment of the elderly on this site.
About time some of those who think the NHS is populated exclusively by saints woke up to the fact that some – indeed many – of the staff are not fit to do the job, and that ill-treatment of patients, particularly of the elderly, is endemic. Not rare and isolated, commonplace.
The report is clear: it is not just about money, it is about staff and unacceptable behaviour.