LONDON LETTER: War memorials are the latest target for criminals involved in a crime wave driven by rocketing prices for copper and other metals
GEORGE ALLEN Victor, a 19-year-old errand boy, died on the first day of the battle of the Somme in 1916. In 1921, his name was one of 240 inscribed on 14 brass plates at the war memorial in Carshalton, listing the London borough of Sutton’s war dead.
For nearly 90 years, the plates stood at the war memorial at Honeywood Lodge Heritage Centre until they disappeared, in the words of police, “in the hours between 12pm on Wednesday, September 28th, and 12pm on Thursday, September 29th”.
Carshalton has not been the only victim. Indeed, the War Memorials Trust believes one memorial a week is now being desecrated by metal thieves, who often get just a few pounds for destroying a relic of history.
Locals were appalled. Describing it as “a disgraceful crime”, councillor Graham Tope said such actions would devastate the families of the dead. Witnesses were sought, but, so far, no one has been arrested.
Now, the trust, already preparing for the 100th anniversary of the first World War in less than three years’ time, is combining with a security company, SmartWater, to ensure as many as possible of Britain’s 100,000 war memorials are protected with a security mark visible only under UV light.
Carshalton is but one example of a crime wave. On Monday, Two Forms (Divided Circle), a bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth that has stood for 40 years in Dulwich Park in south London, disappeared. Insured for £500,000 (€600,000), it would make just a few hundred pounds for the thieves.
In all, the thefts are expected to cost £700 million this year, leading to the disruption of trains and the loss of telephone and broadband services. Even motorway lighting has been cut as thieves, dressed in high-vis jackets, have cut their way into cables in the full view of unsuspecting passing motorists.
Ten thieves have died in the past year. Last December, brothers Jason and John Tusting broke into an electricity sub-station in Penge, near Bromley, with their friend, James Smith, before ripping out copper strips. The theft went wrong and Smith was electrocuted.
Leaving his body inside the sub-station, the brothers fled, selling the fruits of their crime at a local scrap dealer three hours later. In August, the brothers received four-year jail sentences.
The pace of thefts is linked to the world price for copper. By late 2008, it was falling, ending at $3,000 per tonne. From there, it rose dramatically, pushing aside reversals along the way. This week, it was $9,392 per tonne, boosted after a Chilean mine accident halted production there.
The threat is not going to ease soon, given that copper prices could reach $12,000 next year. Already, they have jumped nearly 26 per cent since January last.
“Despite these record prices, cable thieves make little money, in relative terms, for the copper they steal. Certainly they do not receive anything close to the true value from selling copper to scrap yards,” say the British Transport Police.
“Whole communities have lost power or communications, people miss appointments, interviews, flights; churches and householders have had to replace roofs; councils [have to] replace manhole covers.”
The industrial scale thefts have cost Network Rail £43 million over three years up to last June in repairs and compensation to railway companies that have suffered 16,000 hours of hold-ups on the tracks.
Increasingly, thieves are targeting electricity lines. In October, 3,000 homes in Kent were left in the dark for hours when thieves cut directly into a power cable.
In one week, three men were hospitalised with severe burns after thefts in three separate places went wrong. So far this year, the thefts have cost electricity companies £60 million – a fivefold increase on 2010.
“The problem has now escalated to proportions that could see whole regions blacked out for hours,” said the Energy Networks Association.
Soon, the innocent will die. In Castleford, west Yorkshire, in July, thieves cut the neutral cable of an overhead power line. The line serving six houses became live. A spark from an electrical appliance burnt through a gas pipe for a cooker, which exploded. Six homes must now be demolished.
In Hartlepool, two men broke into a derelict property to steal the gas boiler. A leak caused a fire and a subsequent explosion, which blew a hole in the roof and forced the evacuation of 150 people from their homes.
In Edinburgh a man stole pipes from a flat two floors below, nearly blowing up the entire building. In Hull, a woman was saved from carbon monoxide poisoning after she was alert enough to switch off her boiler once she was told a chimney flue had been stolen.
Often, the damage caused for the profits reaped by thieves is staggering. In one, the removal of a brass valve worth £5 caused 30,000 litres of heavy oil to leak, while in Kent two men were jailed in March for causing £125,000 worth of damage to steal copper that fetched £100.
Now, MPs, police and the Local Government Association all want action, insisting scrap metal dealers face an annual registration test, buy only from properly identified sellers and be barred from paying in cash.
Each dealer, says councillor Mehboob Khan, should install CCTV and automatic number plate recognition systems and keep proper logs. It is time, he says, for an industry that has long operated in the twilight zone to be properly run.
