Latest / History Dark / Waiting for him to slip up in the Interrogation _ Special Ops_ Crime Squad UK _ TCC

Transcript

Waiting for him to slip up in the Interrogation _ Special Ops_ Crime Squad UK _ TCC · History Dark

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: When hardened criminals repeatedly evade justice, elite police units are
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: created to crack these toughest cases.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: My role is investigating serious and organised crime.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: We are a covert investigative team.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: For the first time across the UK, we have exclusive
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: access to the investigations of Britain's most talented detectives.
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: We'll spend years putting together all of these tiny pieces
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: of evidence.
• 0:32
  Speaker 5: The most bizarre investigation I've been involved in.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And share, for the first time, the methods and evidence
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: that bring these criminals to book.
• 0:45
  Speaker 6: Handguns coming in from the United States. He had the drugs.
• 0:48
  Speaker 7: That is a lot of money.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: A real who did it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: This time, a drug cartel in Surrey.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Have you got anything to say at all?
• 0:58
  Speaker 8: No comment.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: A cutthroat gang working in the fields of Northamptonshire.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Blood, guts and the flies. It was just like your
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: worst horror movie.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: And a mob of car key thieves in Kent.
• 1:11
  Speaker 6: Stop running!
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Stop running!
• 1:34
  Speaker 9: I like puzzles and figuring things out, which is kind
• 1:37
  Speaker 9: of why I went into being a detective. I was
• 1:40
  Speaker 9: in the Metropolitan Police for approximately 10 years, and I've
• 1:44
  Speaker 9: subsequently moved to Surrey Police. I initially thought that maybe
• 1:49
  Speaker 9: Surrey would be a bit quieter.
• 1:50
  Speaker 7: The reality is it's not quieter.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Surrey Police's drug unit targets local dealers using covert tactics.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: In 2019, a local neighbourhood police officer flagged up a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: new target for the unit to investigate.
• 2:11
  Speaker 9: Our main target came to our attention through intelligence. Various
• 2:15
  Speaker 9: bits of information were coming in about drug dealing in
• 2:18
  Speaker 9: the Surrey area. He may have been enforcing debts.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The suspect was Jack Richardson. He was allegedly beating drug
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: users who owed him money.
• 2:29
  Speaker 9: We do a thing called lifestyling. It would be looking
• 2:32
  Speaker 9: at social networking. Does he pay tax? What time does
• 2:35
  Speaker 9: he wake up? What vehicles does he have access to?
• 2:39
  Speaker 9: And from our initial review of the suspects, it became
• 2:42
  Speaker 9: quite clear that he was living a jet-set lifestyle. He
• 2:47
  Speaker 9: had very nice cars, a very nice house. He only
• 2:51
  Speaker 9: wore designer clothing. Our first question is, where does he
• 2:55
  Speaker 9: get the money? We knew that he had a particular vehicle,
• 3:00
  Speaker 9: and one of the methods we would do would be
• 3:03
  Speaker 9: a random stop on the street to see what he
• 3:06
  Speaker 9: was about.
• 3:06
  Speaker 10: He had made off just before we put the lights on.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: He was aware of our presence.
• 3:13
  Speaker 9: He managed to escape us, and as a police officer,
• 3:16
  Speaker 9: we don't like that.
• 3:20
  Speaker 7: That was game on for us.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: The violence, fears about the scale of the drug dealing,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and the suspect's deliberate escape demanded the creation of a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: special crime squad to investigate.
• 3:34
  Speaker 7: We had myself.
• 3:36
  Speaker 9: I've got a really good backing in proactive investigations. PC
• 3:40
  Speaker 9: Hartley is really good around surveillance and interventions.
• 3:45
  Speaker 11: Surveillance was a big part of this operation, and it's
• 3:49
  Speaker 11: really not as glamorous as TV shows like to make out.
• 3:54
  Speaker 7: We had Ed. He is good at stopping vehicles or
• 3:57
  Speaker 7: stopping persons.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Ed is a covert police officer who needs his identity protected.
• 4:04
  Speaker 10: Part of my role would be to work as an
• 4:07
  Speaker 10: intervention officer, ultimately arrest the persons involved who are under surveillance.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: The team behind Operation Gazebo started work in November 2019.
• 4:23
  Speaker 9: What we could see from the suspect's call information was
• 4:27
  Speaker 9: he was in quite a lot of contact with his brother.
• 4:31
  Speaker 9: When we looked at the brother's phone, we could tell
• 4:33
  Speaker 9: that he was doing regular visits almost on a weekly
• 4:36
  Speaker 9: basis to Liverpool. We just thought he was sourcing large
• 4:41
  Speaker 9: amounts of drugs from Liverpool and taking them back to Surrey.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: The team believed the younger brother was doing the legwork,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: so they worked on a plan to intercept him.
• 4:58
  Speaker 10: Certain vehicles were identified as potentially being involved in those trips.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Operation Gazebo accessed the National Automatic Number Plate Recognition Network,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: known as ANPR. This set of cameras on roads across
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the country records every number plate that travels past. The
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: team needed to confirm Jack Richardson's brother was in the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: car by tracking his mobile phone.
• 5:24
  Speaker 9: If you travel with your phone, normally within a mile
• 5:28
  Speaker 9: radius of a built-up area, your phone would hit mast.
• 5:31
  Speaker 9: If you went up to Liverpool, that would be very
• 5:34
  Speaker 9: easy for a police officer to see the movement of
• 5:37
  Speaker 9: a phone. And as the travel takes place, the phones
• 5:44
  Speaker 9: can clearly be seen moving up through the centre of England,
• 5:49
  Speaker 9: up towards Liverpool.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: They now had to wait and hope for an ANPR
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: alert that he was on the move.
• 5:59
  Speaker 11: It was about 2 o'clock in the morning when we
• 6:01
  Speaker 11: got the hit on the M40 and it was at
• 6:03
  Speaker 11: that point we knew exactly where that car was going.
• 6:06
  Speaker 7: To be heading.
• 6:07
  Speaker 10: I'd literally just got out of the shower to go
• 6:09
  Speaker 10: to bed and I got a phone call. Six of
• 6:12
  Speaker 10: us and a surveillance team all drove as fast as
• 6:16
  Speaker 10: we could.
• 6:16
  Speaker 11: It really was cross your fingers time that we were
• 6:19
  Speaker 11: in the right position to get behind that vehicle.
• 6:24
  Speaker 10: The vehicle was picked up around the M6 toll travelling
• 6:27
  Speaker 10: back towards Surrey The vehicle then, luckily for us, pulled
• 6:31
  Speaker 10: into Warwick Services. The driver was arrested there and then.
• 6:39
  Speaker 11: A search of the vehicle was conducted where I found
• 6:43
  Speaker 11: a large quantity of cocaine in the front passenger footwell.
• 6:46
  Speaker 10: It was certainly a step in the right direction.
• 6:50
  Speaker 9: My name's Martin O'Neill and I'm a detective from Surrey Police.
• 6:53
  Speaker 9: I'm interviewing the police to get your full name and
• 6:55
  Speaker 9: date of birth. So throughout literally the whole interview just
• 7:03
  Speaker 9: stayed with his head in his arms.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: February 2020. The younger brother was facing charges for possessing
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a kilo of cocaine.
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: Can you hear what I'm saying?
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: I don't understand any of this.
• 7:17
  Speaker 7: What don't you understand?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: But the team still needed evidence connecting his older brother
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Jack Richardson to the crime. Their only hope was via
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: phone communications.
• 7:29
  Speaker 9: We reviewed the brother's mobile phone and in the early
• 7:32
  Speaker 9: hours of his arrest, the mobile phone is continually ringing
• 7:37
  Speaker 9: and then stopped phoning. And more or less that day,
• 7:43
  Speaker 9: day after, our main target then dropped his phone as
• 7:48
  Speaker 9: well because he was aware potentially he was being looked
• 7:50
  Speaker 9: at by the police. We then lose track of what
• 7:56
  Speaker 9: he's doing, where is he going. We're blind at that
• 8:01
  Speaker 9: time as to what's going on. Because as far as
• 8:04
  Speaker 9: we know, he could have left the country. We realized
• 8:10
  Speaker 9: the phone that he had was now in Turkey. Was
• 8:14
  Speaker 9: he on the run? He figured us out and maybe
• 8:17
  Speaker 9: he wasn't going to come back. We figured out in
• 8:19
  Speaker 9: the end he was having his teeth whitened or his
• 8:23
  Speaker 9: hairline fixed. It really does point towards what kind of.
• 8:28
  Speaker 7: A person he was.
• 8:29
  Speaker 9: You know, you've got him in Turkey whilst his brother's
• 8:33
  Speaker 9: in prison eating porridge.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Three weeks later, Jack Richardson returned to the UK. Late
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: February 2020, Operation Gazebo surveillance was in overdrive in a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: bid to snare their tricky target.
• 8:48
  Speaker 9: We had all kinds of teams on standby. We wanted
• 8:52
  Speaker 9: to see what we'd call in the police a boot-to-boot,
• 8:54
  Speaker 9: so an exchange of something, an exchange of an item.
• 8:58
  Speaker 7: You know, we know he was.
• 8:59
  Speaker 9: Dealing with drugs at this point, but can we prove it?
• 9:02
  Speaker 11: It was hoped that having taken out his brother, he
• 9:05
  Speaker 11: would take a more active role in dealing with drugs,
• 9:09
  Speaker 11: but up to that point, we just hadn't seen it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: The investigators had to hold their nerve. Three months into surveillance,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: an opportunity seemed to arrive.
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: The 28th of February was a big day.
• 9:25
  Speaker 10: Surveillance started fairly early in the morning so that we
• 9:28
  Speaker 10: could locate Jack at his home address. He was seen
• 9:32
  Speaker 10: by surveillance to go to and from a Vauxhall Astra
• 9:35
  Speaker 10: that was parked on his road. Take a bag out
• 9:40
  Speaker 10: of there and return to his home address.
• 9:42
  Speaker 11: 30 minutes later, he come out of the house. walked
• 9:48
  Speaker 11: towards a different car that was parked further up the
• 9:52
  Speaker 11: road and he left in that car. At which point
• 9:56
  Speaker 11: it was a race to get behind it and see where.
• 9:59
  Speaker 7: It was going.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: This could be the drugs handover the team had hoped for.
• 10:06
  Speaker 10: Jack was then followed and made his way to Leatherhead.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Levitt Road in Leatherhead is a quiet residential street. the
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: police tail were at real risk of blowing their cover.
• 10:24
  Speaker 11: From across the plane park, they saw the vehicle arrive
• 10:29
  Speaker 11: and he picked.
• 10:30
  Speaker 7: Up another male.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: This was a member of Jack Richardson's drug-dealing gang.
• 10:36
  Speaker 11: And we saw another car turn up, which was a
• 10:39
  Speaker 11: Volkswagen Passat. This vehicle had never come to our attention before.
• 10:43
  Speaker 11: We didn't know who was in it, but we soon
• 10:46
  Speaker 11: realised that bags had been placed into the boot of
• 10:49
  Speaker 11: the Passat with the main suspects in a car nearby
• 10:54
  Speaker 11: and watching everything that was going on. A few minutes later,
• 10:58
  Speaker 11: the gang members removed a large JD sports bag from
• 11:02
  Speaker 11: the boot of the Passat and walked back towards Mr Richardson.
• 11:06
  Speaker 11: It was definitely at this point we felt strongly that
• 11:09
  Speaker 11: this was the moment that we'd been waiting for.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Elliot and Ed remained on the tail of the main suspect,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: but the VW Passat looked to be speeding away unimpeded.
• 11:20
  Speaker 11: I was frantically on the phone, ringing different police forces,
• 11:24
  Speaker 11: getting a marker put on the vehicle for this vehicle
• 11:27
  Speaker 11: to be stopped urgently. Thankfully, Derbyshire Police, they were great.
• 11:33
  Speaker 11: They were like, leave it with us, we'll deal with this.
• 11:36
  Speaker 7: One male occupant detained in the vehicle, no issues.
• 11:40
  Speaker 11: It wasn't until a vehicle was stopped that we knew
• 11:42
  Speaker 11: the identity of the driver.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: An Albanian national was arrested on the M1.
• 11:50
  Speaker 11: Along with a large quantity of cannabis was the same
• 11:54
  Speaker 11: bag containing a large quantity of money that we'd seen
• 11:56
  Speaker 11: Mr Richardson take from the Vauxhall parked outside his house
• 12:01
  Speaker 11: earlier on in the day.
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: Fair bit of cash, fair bit of cash.
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: That was really key for us.
• 12:11
  Speaker 11: That showed Mr Richardson put the money forward for a
• 12:15
  Speaker 11: large-scale drug deal.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Back in Surrey, Jack Richardson and the other gang member
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: had split up.
• 12:27
  Speaker 11: Our main focus was to stay with the bag, but
• 12:30
  Speaker 11: Mr Richardson went in one direction in one car, and
• 12:33
  Speaker 11: the other suspect went in another direction with another car.
• 12:37
  Speaker 11: It was at this point that we decided it was
• 12:39
  Speaker 11: the time to stop the gang member. Unfortunately, he got
• 12:43
  Speaker 11: away from us, but we were able to recover the car,
• 12:46
  Speaker 11: and within that we found a large quantity of cocaine,
• 12:50
  Speaker 11: a knife.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: The gang member had escaped, but he was arrested a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: few hours later. In the meantime, the surveillance team tracked
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Jack Richardson to Epsom.
• 13:04
  Speaker 11: The priority was to get him in custody before he
• 13:07
  Speaker 11: could destroy evidence.
• 13:11
  Speaker 9: We believe at that point he was fully aware that
• 13:13
  Speaker 9: he was being followed by police.
• 13:17
  Speaker 10: A decision was then made to arrest him. He saw
• 13:24
  Speaker 10: the car travelling towards him. He then started to run off.
• 13:29
  Speaker 10: He eventually stopped, so there was no dramatic tackle to
• 13:33
  Speaker 10: the floor.
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: He was handcuffed and we walked back to my colleagues.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: After three months of surveillance and hundreds of hours of
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: tireless investigation, all that could be indisputably linked to Jack
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Richardson was a small amount of cocaine and Class B weed.
• 13:54
  Speaker 9: Surrey Police believe that you, if you're not the top member,
• 13:57
  Speaker 9: you're a very senior member... of this organised group in
• 14:02
  Speaker 9: relation to supplying Class A drugs. In relation to that allegation,
• 14:09
  Speaker 9: have you got anything.
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: To say at all?
• 14:10
  Speaker 9: No comment.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: The key breakthrough was about to come.
• 14:16
  Speaker 9: We always had the sneaking suspicion, you know, what are
• 14:20
  Speaker 9: we going to find in Jack Richardson's house?
• 14:23
  Speaker 11: With his MO having previously kept stuff in cars, drugs
• 14:27
  Speaker 11: and money... We suspected those items would be in that car.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: The team's perseverance was about to pay off.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: You got another shopping bag there full of cash by
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: the looks of things.
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: OK.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: That is a lot of money.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Police had uncovered half a million pounds in cash in
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the boot of a car. Operation Gazebo had all the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: evidence they needed to charge Jack Richardson. Along with the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: half a million in cash, police seized £ 300, 000 of cocaine
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and cannabis and six high-spec vehicles. It was one of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Surrey Police's largest cash seizures from a drug operation. Three
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: members of the cocaine cartel were jailed. The kingpin himself
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: is in prison awaiting sentencing. He's expected to get up
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to 18 years.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Thousand pounds worth of cannabis.
• 15:31
  Speaker 7: Did you have anything to do with that drug deal
• 15:33
  Speaker 7: that took place? Not quite.
• 15:35
  Speaker 9: He'll always look over his shoulder for the rest of
• 15:37
  Speaker 9: his life. He may come out of prison after a
• 15:40
  Speaker 9: certain amount of time, but I think he'll always have
• 15:43
  Speaker 9: this sneaking fear that, you know, the police are going
• 15:45
  Speaker 9: to be watching him, and you never know who he
• 15:48
  Speaker 9: might be.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: More than 70% of the country's land is farmed. And
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: over 300,000 people are employed in UK farming. Rural theft
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: costs over £ 40 million a year. Including more than £ 2
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: million worth of stolen animals. In 2018, 26% of rural
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: businesses were targeted by criminals.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: If somebody sat down with, you know, a child in
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: a school and asked them what they want to do
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: when they're older and they said detective, the first thing
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: that will come to mind is, you know, investigate, you know, murders,
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: because that's what's on the television, that's what's on the
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: crime dramas that you watch. Investigating something like this, it's
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: a breath of fresh air because it's something so different.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Northamptonshire is a rural county in the heart of England.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: 77% of its land is used for farming So when
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: crime does occur, it's often in remote areas that are
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: difficult to police.
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: You're talking about such rural areas that it could be
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: a couple of days before the victims in all of this,
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: the farmers, actually identified that they'd been the.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Victim of an attack. In 2019, reports of a uniquely
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: brutal crime began to come into the police. The bloody
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: slaughter and theft of livestock at local sheep farms....
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: I received a call from my DCI who'd said that
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: over the weekend we'd had an incident involving the illegal
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: slaughtering of livestock. It's not anything that I've really experienced
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: before in policing.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: CID joined with other specialised police departments to help crack
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the crime.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: We used the community teams headed up by Sam Dobbs,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: Sam's one of those people who would go above and
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: beyond what would be expected of him as a community sergeant,
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: and he was able to forge some really strong working
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: relationships with people.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: As a neighbourhood sergeant, you have a very small team
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: of officers and your job is to own crime and
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: antisocial behaviour and disorder on your patch and to be
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: accountable and responsible for it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: March 2019.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Operation Stock was up and running, but they were already
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: playing catch-up.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I would be getting phone calls from members of the public.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: We've just had another one this afternoon. And from that
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: moment on, I knew that this was going to be
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: something we weren't going to be able to ignore. We
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: went to the scene, saw it, smelt it. It was
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: just like your worst horror movie. Blood spilling. lambs' feet, guts,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: and the flies. I cannot tell you, the flies everywhere.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: And there's this trail of destruction right to what was
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: obviously the slaughter pen. Just to have to deal with
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: that yourself, but then see the effect on that farmer.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: It was horrendous. It was such a rural location. CCTV,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: there isn't any. This problem landed on our patch and
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: we hadn't got a clue where it had come from,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: why it was happening, and that was where we need
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: to work really hard.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Officers from several Northampton police departments were pulled in. Attending
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the initial incidents, reassuring the concerned local residents and building intelligence.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: I remember ringing one of the teams. They drove past
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: a gate. They noticed as they came back the gate
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: was off. They went in the field and they found
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: this horrible crime scene.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: It was the sheep farm of Patrick Green. Patrick's family
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: have farmed the land for three generations.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: We were woken up at 3 o'clock in the morning
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: or 3.30 in the morning by a police officer and
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: they started to explain what they'd seen, which sounded horrific.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: As it got light and things like that, I went
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: to have a look and see what the damage was.
• 20:43
  Speaker 12: This was the gate I get to. I guess it
• 20:47
  Speaker 12: was just getting light by the time we got to
• 20:48
  Speaker 12: the field. The gate was laying on the floor. The
• 20:52
  Speaker 12: gate post was broken. And I looked across the field
• 20:56
  Speaker 12: and all you could see was the remains of what
• 20:59
  Speaker 12: I realised in the end were 26 lambs. Some parts
• 21:03
  Speaker 12: were hanging on the gates over there. Some parts were
• 21:06
  Speaker 12: spread all across the field and their heads and things
• 21:10
  Speaker 12: like that were in the ditch nearby. Always as important
• 21:14
  Speaker 12: to them was making the small amount of money they
• 21:18
  Speaker 12: were going to get from 26 lambs. To be honest,
• 21:21
  Speaker 12: I don't like leaning on this gate anymore.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: By August 2019, 10 farms across the county had now
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: been victim of the barbaric butchering. the crimes were starting
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: to develop a pattern that could ultimately help crack the case.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: Put yourself in the suspect's shoes. What do you need
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: in order to commit this kind of offence? Well, you're
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: not going to do it on your own. So we
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: knew we were looking for multiple people. You're going to
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: need a vehicle. You're going to need a large vehicle,
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: but you're going to need a vehicle that can travel
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: on rough ground. potentially a refrigerated vehicle, depending on what.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: You're going to be doing with the meat once the
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: offence has been committed.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: So these are all things that you start thinking about, right,
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: who are we looking for and where do we focus
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: our attention if we're going to be looking at ANPR data,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: for example, what kind of vehicle are we looking for?
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: It was hard old slog, getting out there in the community,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: being available and visible at night, so the farmers could
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: see us literally stopping vehicles. I was constantly tweeting what
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: we were doing. And I asked the officers to keep
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: a list of all the villages they'd been to and
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: then did an A to Z. So I could say
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: to the community, whilst you were sleeping, these 28 villages
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: all had a policing presence during the night. The longer
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: it goes on, the more nervous.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: You become, that you're never going to find the people
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: responsible and this is something that's going to just carry
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: on and carry on and the pressure's never going to
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: ease up.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The slaughtering went on and on throughout the summer months.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: We'd had more offences, more outrage. The police and crime
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: commissioner said to me, we cannot let this get out
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: of hand. Whatever you need, let's try and grip this.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: The community were angry about it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: The farmers were contacting the police and saying, you know,
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: we've got an issue here and we need your help.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Operation Stock still had no leads. Fear and frustration was
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: building in the farming community.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: So many people forget that just because a farmer is
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: a business person, they will also have massive emotional attachments
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: to their livestock, which they look after and care for
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: every day.
• 23:40
  Speaker 13: The vast majority of the farming community are incredibly responsible.
• 23:46
  Speaker 13: But let's be under no illusion, if somebody is attacking
• 23:49
  Speaker 13: your property or if somebody is attacking your home, then
• 23:52
  Speaker 13: you quite rightly will want to defend that.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Police needed the local farmers to act as ears and eyes.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: But they also turned to technology.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: At one point we deployed the drone over fields again
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: to see if we could pick up anything that resembled
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: human beings rather than animals.
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: Response teams now have access to drones, and that's something that,
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: you know, you won't know that a drone is a
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: few hundred feet above you because they're so small and
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: they're so quiet. And in the dead of night, they're
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: a really, really good tool for us to be able
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: to not just look for suspects, but actually look for
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: where the livestock is, because it's pointless us patrolling an
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: empty field.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Despite the escalated operation, the drones couldn't cover enough ground
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and the butchery continued, with police always one step behind.
• 25:02
  Speaker 13: I think the surprising element of it was how brazen
• 25:09
  Speaker 13: the offenders were. The fact that they were travelling some
• 25:12
  Speaker 13: distance into the county, that they were slaughtering the animals
• 25:16
  Speaker 13: in the field. It's not as if they were throwing
• 25:17
  Speaker 13: them in the back of a trailer and doing their
• 25:20
  Speaker 13: butchery elsewhere. The devastation that they left behind is almost unspeakable. Also,
• 25:28
  Speaker 13: they would keep coming back. And of course, sometimes that's
• 25:30
  Speaker 13: helpful for the police because you know they're gonna make
• 25:32
  Speaker 13: a mistake and they're gonna trip up.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: I always had a view that they'll catch themselves out,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: as most criminals do, because they get greedy.
• 25:40
  Speaker 13: And we did have one occasion where we were minutes away.
• 25:43
  Speaker 13: We were minutes away from actually catching them in the act.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: At one crime scene, police found knives used in the butchery,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: suggesting the thieves had been forced into a hasty getaway.
• 25:57
  Speaker 13: We missed them on this occasion. What could we have
• 25:59
  Speaker 13: done better? It's about continually learning. It's about continually tweaking.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Police knew decisive intervention would be required when the gang
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: next hit. So they got their teams prepared.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: The farmers were telling us, look out for full moon nights.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: It needs to be a clear and dry night because
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: you're not going to go and do this under torchlight
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: because people are going to see you. And because it
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: was such a rural location, it's obviously going to be
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: pitch dark. Nobody's going to be living out in these locations.
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: You kind of pick this up as you go. Like
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: most investigations, you won't realise until the third or fourth
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: offence that, oh, this was a clear, starry night as
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: well with a full moon. It makes sense that if
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: we're going to plan ahead, we're going to put ourselves
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: in the right place at the right time to maximise
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: our opportunity to catch these people in the act.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Over seven months, 155 lambs, ewes and rams had been slaughtered.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Police felt confident they knew how the gang operated and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: focused on one particular October evening to make their move.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: We spoke to Warwickshire and Leicestershire and we asked for volunteers.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: We pulled together this quite... Remarkable operation one night.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: We were aware that there was a vehicle of interest
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: to the investigation. We were aware that it was in
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: the county and we'd already kind of pieced together that
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: there was a common pattern of behaviour that when this
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: vehicle was in our county, we tended, more often than not,
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: to have an offence on us. When this vehicle came
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: to our attention one Sunday evening, I was very quick
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: to get on the phone to Sam and say, look,
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: let's put all of our tactics in place now and
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: make sure we're ready.
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: Three people ran from the van.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: Two were arrested immediately following a quick foot chase. Unfortunately,
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: one of them disappeared into the night. However, using the
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: evidence that was left at the scene, using the two
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: individuals that we had caught, property that was in the van,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: we were able to very, very quickly, within a matter
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: of hours, trace the third individual that ran from the
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: van back to a home address in the West Midlands.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: All three made a full and frank admission on interview.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't say that they were remorseful, but they were
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: honest in as much as they told.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Us why they were there and what they were doing.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: They were committing these crimes in order to basically sell lamb,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: clearly making some money out of it, and then when
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: they ran out of lamb were coming back into the
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: county to steal more lamb.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Robert Yordan, Florian Nodal and Buir El Manu were arrested.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: At court, they all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: They were jailed for a combined total of ten years.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Sounds twee, maybe, but justice was done. Justice was seen
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: to be done. And probably, when I look back over
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: 30 years of policing, Operation Stock, for me, will be
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: one of those operations I'm never going to forget.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: There are normally over half a million domestic burglaries a
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: year in the UK. In two-thirds of burglaries, someone was
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: at home and at risk of a terrifying ordeal. The
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Crime Survey of England and Wales recorded that in 2019-2020,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: potentially 24% of vehicle thefts occurred after a home was
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: burgled for its car keys.
• 30:21
  Speaker 14: Police in Kent's got some unique challenges. Obviously, we've got
• 30:24
  Speaker 14: the Channel and the borders with France. and also we
• 30:28
  Speaker 14: border London, which is the biggest police force. We do
• 30:31
  Speaker 14: get crime passing through that's not necessarily resident in Kent.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: In 2019, the Chief Constable of Kent established a crime
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: squad after a significant spike in residential burglaries throughout the county.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Since its inception, his team have secured over 865 years
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: in prison sentences of criminals involved in armed burglary, knife
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: point robbery and car theft. January 2020, and a rash
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: of house break-ins caught the detective inspector's attention.
• 31:11
  Speaker 14: Most people would think it very traumatic to have someone
• 31:14
  Speaker 14: coming into their house and stealing their belongings. We noticed
• 31:20
  Speaker 14: a spike in a particular crime type of car key burglaries.
• 31:24
  Speaker 14: By day two or three, we start to realise that
• 31:26
  Speaker 14: there is a pattern and we have got to get
• 31:29
  Speaker 14: a team together. Scott's very tenacious, very thorough, really detailed,
• 31:35
  Speaker 14: works off minimal information.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I had been in my previous role for nine years.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Part of that previous role was looking at crime.
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: Series, be it burglaries and robberies.
• 31:48
  Speaker 14: Another member of the team is Matt. He's our intelligence officer.
• 31:52
  Speaker 8: One of the things I will do on a daily
• 31:53
  Speaker 8: basis is to monitor the incoming calls and monitor the
• 31:57
  Speaker 8: crime reports.
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: Every crime is unique.
• 32:00
  Speaker 8: However, people will use MOs that they are familiar with.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: An elite crime squad, codename Operation Hallow, set out to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: quickly put an end to this sudden spate of car
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: key burglaries. But there was very little to go on.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: All we had was a bit of CCTV at Medway
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: services of two lads who we thought were likely suspects.
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: We'd identified an older BMW.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: I did a check on Police National Computer and what
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: that showed was that some 45 minutes after the second burglary,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: that vehicle was being chased around the Bexley Heath area
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: of South London by Metropolitan Police officers.
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: There was a chap that was arrested.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: He was immediately interesting to me in regards to our burglaries.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: When Met Police searched the man's vehicle, they found stolen
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: property from the Kent burglary. He was taken into custody,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: but the rest of the gang remained at large.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Having identified the offender, it was obviously nice that he
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: was away and wasn't able to do anything else, but
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: it didn't give us an awful lot to go on.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: We were still unsure who the second offender was, if
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: it was the same chap each time or whether he
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: was bringing down somebody else.
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: There was a lot of unanswered questions.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: At the end of February, three more car key buggeries
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: took place.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The victim there said that he saw them drive off
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: in a small blue vehicle.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: After a further four car key burglaries in Kent, the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: police thought they had a breakthrough. The police obtained footage
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: of a blue vehicle visiting a drive-through in Crayford, London.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: The CCTV at this place showed the vehicle come up
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: through the drive-through. We could see the false number plate
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: that the vehicle was on. There was cameras in the
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: little booths that the staff were in to take the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: money and pass over the order, and we could just
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: about see through the window that the driver of the
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Hyundai was wearing an Under Armour cap. There was nothing
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: facially distinctive about him. The footage wasn't good enough.
• 34:20
  Speaker 14: You will hit frustrations during an investigation, so you won't
• 34:23
  Speaker 14: see people's faces such that you could recognise them, even
• 34:27
  Speaker 14: if you know who they are.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: By working backwards, the team were able to track the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: movements of the blue car and discovered that someone had
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: visited a retail park in Crayford in the vehicle at
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the start of March.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: The car was in there for about an hour and
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: a half, so the chances are we think they'd gone
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: for a bit of lunch somewhere.
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: Obviously, I didn't know where they'd been, if they'd.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Been into any shops, restaurants or whatever else that had
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: It took forever to sort out, actually, when the car
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: came in, where it parked, who got out of it,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: where they went, and then go to the various outlets
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: of where these people had been to get some more
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: footage and some clear footage of some faces to see
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: if we could try and identify who these people were.
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: It was a long day, that one.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: I managed to locate two people who I thought were
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: the most likely to have parked the small blue vehicle in.
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: That car park, and... They paid by cash.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Shortly after they left, a long, blonde-haired female went into
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: another shop on that retail park on her own. Looked
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: at their CCTV and we were trying to get decent
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: images of that female. She made a transaction with a
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: card and we traced the card and got a name.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: It was the first concrete lead on the identity of
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the gang member, George Knight. Matt now had to profile
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the target and his habits.
• 35:54
  Speaker 8: Once it was established that we'd identified him as a
• 35:57
  Speaker 8: suspect for approaching Hallow, the work really began building a
• 36:01
  Speaker 8: picture around him. He was stealing vehicles from the car
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: key breaks and he was taken in, we believe, to
• 36:07
  Speaker 8: be close to his home address. It was for me
• 36:11
  Speaker 8: to provide Scott with updates around what threat he posed
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: to the public, what he was capable of.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Over the course of four weeks, CCTV from numerous Kent
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: properties captured men committing several burglaries. Police thought they knew
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: who it was, but they still didn't have enough proof
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to make an arrest.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Evidentially, we were quite weak at that point. We'd identified
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: him as a potential suspect, but we need more than that.
• 36:44
  Speaker 14: It's probably one of the most frustrating parts of policing
• 36:46
  Speaker 14: when you know who's responsible but you haven't got the
• 36:49
  Speaker 14: evidence to support that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: In March of 2020, we saw an increase in offences
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: in the Medway area. So they'd almost finished with Canterbury,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: done the west down in Tunbridge and they started offending
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: in the Medway area.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: We had offences in Rochester... Chatham and Gillingham, and we
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: had one on the Isle of Grain there.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: This was really quite key for us, because we got
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: an awful lot of footage from private CCTV and ring
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: doorbells and bits and pieces like that. And then we
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: started to get images of not so much people's faces,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: but certainly the clothing that they favoured wearing, almost their
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: burgling uniform, if you like. They were using a white
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Range Rover Evoque to do their crimes. also showed who
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: else he was involved in this criminality with, but we
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: didn't know who they were.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Scott turned to cell phone analysis to try and find
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: out who George Knight was talking to before the crimes occurred.
• 37:58
  Speaker 14: The mobile phone evidence is key to this case and
• 38:02
  Speaker 14: key to a lot of cases. Most people will carry
• 38:05
  Speaker 14: a mobile phone and that carries a lot of information.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: We managed to get a phone number for George, a
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: list of names and a list of possibles. It was
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: a case of trying to work out which one looks
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: like people.
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: In the CCTV.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: One person who George and I often communicated with was
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Ryan Hull. He was well known to the police.
• 38:28
  Speaker 14: We had previously investigated the suspect for separate burglary matters,
• 38:32
  Speaker 14: but very similar offending, and so it was quite obvious
• 38:36
  Speaker 14: that they were likely to be offending together. kind of
• 38:39
  Speaker 14: spider webs from there.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: CCTV showed that the men involved in the car key
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: burglaries would often wear the same clothes. This gave the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: police an opportunity to link them to several crimes.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Always seemed to wear a Philadelphia Flyers black cap, a
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: blue puffer jacket with some white writing on the left breast,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: some grey jogging bottles and some Nike trainers. So it
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: was important for us then to try and find CCTV
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: footage of them elsewhere when their guard was down rather
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: than hiding their faces. So we managed to find some
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: footage of them at various retail outlets. They were wearing
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: similar clothing quite often. They had their guard down so
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: their faces were shown. And it was then we could say, well,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: this is the footage from the burglary. this is the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: footage from the shop, these are one of the same people.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: The same CCTV footage also turned up a third suspect.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: We uncovered the likelihood a chap was potentially involved in
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: this as well, because he was seen on CCTV with
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Ryan in these various retail outlets on key nights.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: The police had the evidence needed to arrest the three-man gang.
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: On the 8th of April, the plan was to go
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: and arrest George.
• 40:08
  Speaker 7: Come on, he's.
• 40:13
  Speaker 8: Coming for you!
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: Come on!
• 40:22
  Speaker 14: Search warrant, stay where you are.
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: We found the suspect at his partner's address.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: You're under arrest, mate.
• 40:31
  Speaker 13: The spirit six, Virgil.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Virgil?
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: Yep.
• 40:33
  Speaker 11: Come here.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: A search was done there and we found numerous mobile phones,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: handsets and SIM cards and bits and pieces there. Similarly,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: in another address, I don't know how they did it,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: but the guys managed to find a tiny little micro
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: SIM card in amongst a bundle of clothing somewhere I
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have looked.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: This SIM card placed the second suspect at the scene
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: of multiple crimes and cemented his role in the gang.
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: When we got into interview, he went no comment to
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: all questions.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: The longer the interview went on and the more evidence
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: that we kind of dropped into, you could see that
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: he was.
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: The reality was dawning that he was in a little
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: bit of bother.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: The police raids were successful. George Knight, Ryan Hull and
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Matthew Francis were all charged. All pleaded guilty to conspiracy
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: to burgle. They were jailed for a combined total of
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: over 15 years.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: It's one of the biggest cases that we've dealt with. Yeah,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: 35 burglaries in total. That doesn't happen very often. The
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: majority of the stolen vehicles have been recovered.
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: A lot of them were found on false plates. We
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: got most of them. Thank you.