ATTEMPTED THEFT
At approximately 16:00 hrs (4 p.m.) yesterday afternoon, Tuesday 11th
December, I was working just outside my gate. I was standing on my
stepladder, cutting a Bougainvillea creeper away from the electric fence wires
on top of the wall. My gate was half open.
A large vehicle of the ‘people-carrier’ type, metallic silver-grey in colour,
which appeared to be a Nissan El Grande but which I subsequently found to have
a name something like ‘Basara’ (some of the letters were missing or obscure) on
the back door, came past slowly with only driver and passenger on board in the
front seats as far as I could see. Both these men looked up at me as they
drove past. I noticed that the body moulding at the bottom left rear
corner was damaged, with a piece broken out, but unfortunately did not get the
registration number; but I would recognise it easily if I saw it again.
Shortly afterwards they returned and stopped at the entrance to my
driveway. The driver, well-dressed and well-spoken, got out and addressed
me, saying “Seeing you there, I wondered if you could let us have some water as
this vehicle keeps overheating?” I said yes I could do that, and told
them to park just outside my gate and wait there. I then walked up to the
house to fetch a small (4 litre) container of water which I took to their
car. When they opened the bonnet I was puzzled to note that the engine
was not excessively hot and no steam was coming from the radiator.
The passenger kept re-starting the engine until I told him to switch it off and
leave it alone. The driver chatted politely for a few minutes, then put a
cloth over the radiator filler cap and removed this; the radiator was full to
the brim and certainly nowhere near boiling! I now became very suspicious
and realised that they were up to something. However, they thanked me and
drove away.
When I returned to the house I found the back door locked and could not get in,
so called to my wife to open it, and asked her why it was locked. She
told me that she had been sitting quietly in the lounge when she suddenly
noticed, with astonishment, in the adjacent dining room, an arm, clearly not
that of a family member, reach out and pick up a small zip-bag of mine which I
had left on the dining room table. She stood up and addressed this
individual, telling him that he would not find anything of value in the
bag. He was extremely startled but quickly said that he was looking for
pen & paper; my wife then thought that perhaps I had sent him in; she noted
that he was well dressed and well-spoken, and was wearing a shiny pair of
pointed shoes, so she asked him where he had got these, to which he replied that
he had been in London. He then left without taking anything, at which
point my wife shut and locked the back door through which he must have entered.
The extraordinary thing to me is how this third person, no doubt an accomplice
of the two in the car, had managed to sneak in and out of my property without
ever being seen by me, no doubt while I was being distracted by the two at the
car. Our concern is that this may have been a reconnaissance trip against
a possible future ‘visit’, but I am well armed at home and also have a highly
efficient wireless alarm system which has already foiled at least 7 attempted
burglaries and thefts from cars in the past. The lesson to be learned is
that it is not even safe to assist people who are ostensibly genuine and
respectable.
Signed . . . B
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