Metal Detectors: Scheme To Beat The Thieves

A pilot scheme to try to stop the theft of metal is being launched in northeast England.

Thefts of valuable metals are thought to be costing the country £1bn a year in loss and damage, as well as causing chaos on the railways.

Virgin Trains estimates that cable thefts alone were responsible for 6,000 hours of delays on the railways last year.

The Government-backed scheme relies on dealers agreeing to record the names and addresses of people selling scrap metal.

Operation Tornado is hoping to sign up all 240 registered scrap metal dealers from Northumberland to Cleveland for the six-month pilot.

Anyone selling metal will be asked to provide their driving licence or passport backed up with a recent utility bill.

Chief Inspector Robin Edwards from the Association of Chief Police Officers said the scheme should restrict the sale and movement of stolen metal.

"It has been designed not to inhibit those dealers that operate legitimate businesses but to remove unscrupulous dealers who operate outside the law," he said.

Most thefts are thought to be opportunistic and the scheme will be judged a success if it reduces the number of thefts by cutting off the local market for stolen scrap.

Lord Henley, the Home Office minister for crime prevention, described metal theft as a serious and growing international problem.

"It is clear that legislation dating back to the 1960s is not sufficient to deal with an increasingly organised crime," he said.

"[I] hope that the many legitimate members of the scrap metal recycling industry in the North East will use this opportunity to help us to remove unscrupulous dealers who operate outside the law or turn a blind eye to stolen material."

David Brooke, rector of St Cuthbert's Church in Redmarshall, County Durham, welcomes the scheme.

Metal thieves left his congregation of 20 people with a repair bill of £30,000. His 13th century church has been closed since before Christmas when thieves stripped lead from the roof, causing water damage to the walls, carpets and pews.

"The people who took the scrap probably made hundreds of pounds and the value of the metal itself is probably a few thousand pounds," he said.

"But the damage is tens of thousands of pounds and, to be honest, we don't know where some of it is coming from."