Well done, the Met! That sort of teamwork is so encouraging.
I have just read on LinkedIn this morning a posting by a Met sergeant, drawing attention to the cooperation last night between a private security firm [MyLocalBobby] and the Met’s West End Town Centre Team. The exercise, described as a ‘partnership’, led to the arrests of mobile phone thieves.
On this subject of partnership, might I also suggest that fraud victims desperately need that sort of collaboration between professionals and law enforcement.
As fraud reports to the police now have the reputation of being routinely met with ambivalence, so often victims, be they commercial companies or individuals, turn to professional investigators who have the credibility and skill to consider the evidence and viability to progress.
Yet, so often, here we have provided police with results of a full and successful investigation, comprising a detailed covering report which explains the crime and methods of approach, together with robust s9 witness statements, and properly recorded exhibits; all proving the criminality of those responsible. But even when the fraudsters are in the UK, it is rarely that the victim and the criminal are in the same force area, so the “dead horse on the district boundary” syndrome develops, each force strenuously pushing the corpse back over the line, the “dead horse” inevitably falling into a black hole.
Probe, Prove, and Pursue
Hence, commercial companies victim of fraud have learned that reporting oft-substantial crimes to the police is counter-productive; the cost-effective route being to engage professional investigators from the outset, to probe, prove, and pursue through the civil process.
It would naturally be simpler for forces to expend the same amount of time and energy in taking on such a case that they do in dodging it. And, of course, just as in this enthusiastic and welcome street offence collaboration in Leicester Square last night, the victims would benefit. Now, there’s a novel thought!
IP Forensics [GB] Ltd
