Metal theft has reached “epidemic” proportions in Britain with more than 1,000 offences taking place every week, according to official figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph.
The number of metal thefts has doubled in the past five years with 60,000 offences in the first 10 months of this year alone. Some of the worst-hit areas are Lancashire, Kent, Nottinghamshire and County Durham, where officers have recorded more than 2,500 metal thefts in 2011. Thieves have targeted railway lines, church roofs, community centres, war memorials, irreplaceable works of art, manhole covers and even plaques in cemetaries. The number of thefts from churches has doubled in the past three years alone. The Rt Rev John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, told The Daily Telegraph that the government needed to act urgently to regulate the scrap metal industy.
Last week the Daily Telegraph revealed that new laws were being held up after concerns were raised by officials from the Department of Business about red tape. He said: “The promise of change is near, but it can’t come soon enough” for those left with the “trauma”. “The damage done to churches is out of all proportion to the value of the melted down lead.” As thieves become increasingly desperate for targets to cash in on record metal prices, it is estimated that two offenders are killed trying to steal metal every month. Meanwhile thefts of street lighting from roads and copper cables from railways are putting the lives of workers and members of the public at risk.In some areas, metal theft is reported to represent a tenth of total recorded crime while the British Transport Police now ranks the issue second only to fighting terrorism in its priorities. However the true scale of the epidemic is being hidden by a lack of uniform rules on record-keeping and the fact that many thefts go unreported. In an attempt to tackle the “crime of choice” among thieves looking for easy money, the Metropolitan Police set up a dedicated taskforce last week.
The Home Office is also running a £5million drive to address the problem, while ministers are considering making cash transactions at scrapyards illegal to stop thieves profiting from selling on stolen metal. A British Transport Police spokesman said: “Metal theft is a menace on society because it has such an incredible negative impact on communities right across Britain.”