A Cautionary Tale - burglars pay a visit

For an ex Chairman of Reduced Crime and a past member of the Police Authority this sad and sorry tale will garner little sympathy.

You will rightly say, Serves you right, are you a slow learner or what?

With the law on householders rights versus burglars topical at the moment, I thought I mightshare with youmy first-hand experiences.

One Thursday evening last May at 11:30pm I put the cat out, shut the utility door, locked the kitchen door and went to bed. Pretty much my normal routine. Once in bed I quickly fell asleep.

That Friday morning I wake up early, I was supposed to be in Cheshire by 9:00am so early off was the order of the day.

I unlock the kitchen door and then I am faced with a utility room in disarray, every cupboard door open, various bits and pieces scattered all round and the garden door open to the outside.

I venture outside into the garden and see that my garage doors are open and my daughters car has been broken into.

So what had happened? Well Id been burgled, done over. What had they taken?

A cordless drill worth about 100, a heavy duty contractors type, masonry drill complete with various high quality masonry bits worth about 560, a full boxed set of socket spanners worth about 40, about a dozen music CDs worth about 150 a car CD radio player probably worth about 250.

So were about 1100 down and weve not yet considered the damage to the car.

Our night time visitors had bent the top rear corner of the drivers door to gain access to the car, so thats it knackered.

A trip to Simpsons Scrap Yard at Full Sutton and a scrimmage round this Aladdins cave and I find a metallic blue Fiat with an undamaged offside front door, complete with electric windows and remote locking. Ninety nine quid parts company and were off back home to fit a door. So there will be another bill in due course to re-spray it to match the rest of the car, metallic blue will need to become white to complete the job, so what will that be another 150, if Im lucky.

So returning to the second sentence of this little piece, I should have known better and yes I am a slow learner.

There should be more security around Castle Fraser, things should be locked up and there should be less trust about. However in mitigation, in the twenty seven years we have been there my gradual slip into this secure mindset plainly lags behind the pace of criminal development.

Time was when I worked 200 yards away at the piggery all day. We never locked the door and the car keys were left in the ignition, if anyone delivered anything to the house or to the farm they would go inside and leave it on the table. If it was Maurice the Postman it was not unusual to come back in for my breakfast to find him sitting having a cup of tea and one in the pot for me, hed tell me the news from the postcards which he had brought from relative on holiday in foreign climes, not bad a delivery and reading service.

Then we had Pixie a dog which by rights we could have sued someone under trades descriptions, when we got him he was tiny, Hell only ever be small, a bit of a runt, said the lady who wanted him gone, rejected by his mother and three weeks old, we fed him natural yogurt for three weeks and he grew, we fed him puppy food and he grew some more.

Pixie turned into the canine equivalent of a groin height exocet missile. He would have been entertained by our night time visitor, then eaten him. Oh Pixie on Thursday night we missed you dearly. We missed you to the tune of 1349. Maybe in the future Ill have to join that new breed of locking, doubting, gate shutting, suspecting, protectors of property.

Sadly I feel as if some trusting belief in people, something of the past, has died in me, but I am becoming a quicker learner.

Cllr Symon Fraser