A Warning/advice

[northswell]

Borrowed this from another site, but its worth a read.


POSTED BY ME FOR PC 2745 Paul (Taff) Greening,
Neighbourhood Beat Manager Braunton Rural/Coastal

As the neighbourhood beat officer for the Saunton and Croyde areas, what I am trying to do is promote the security of equipement to prevent theft and also to record equipement in such a manner that it makes it easier for us to circulate equipement, when it is stolen. We do live in a relatively low crime rate area, however there is no getting away from the fact that a car park full on a good weekend, with surfboards,kayaks,wetsuits etc.hanging on cars, is a magnet to certain members of the criminal fraternity. Only recently, a car was stolen from the Saunton beach car park, the owner having left the keys to his car under a nearby stone. When he and his wife returned from their surf, all they had left was their two boards and the wetsuits they were stood up in. Both had to ferried to their digs at Clovelly and the next day ferried to the train station in Barnstaple. This was after money had been generously given to them by other holiday makers to raise the trainfair home to London.

There are plenty of products readily available for the safe housing of car keys, such as mini safes that lock to the tow eye on your car,waterproof holders for the car keys with chips in them or the good old piece of string around the neck. All of these must be better than a car key under a stone or under the wheel arch.


Guess what, criminals know about these hiding places!

People walking around Saunton beach car park carrying a surfboard would look quite natural. However, what about the person that walks up to the car next to yours and takes the board off the roof. Are they the owner? Do they look right for the circumstances? Would you say anything to them? What if someone was removing your boards off your vehicle, would you like a fellow surfer to be looking out for your intersets and make that approach? Sometimes, just the fact that you are looking will deter a thief from operating.

Do you have any photos of your equipement?

You can make life a little easier for the police if you are the victim of theft simply by having good quality digital photos of your equipement. Don't forget to photograph anything that will identify your board/craft/wetsuit. Just think about what marks,dents,repairs are on it. What about custom paint or signage? Photograph it and keep it on a picture file in your computer preferably in JPEG format. That way you can e-mail the photos to us and not only can we circulate locally but also to other police stations close to surfing beaches further down the coast.

All it takes is a few minutes out of your life to get these photos and load them onto your computers. Hopefully you'll never need to use them.

If you havn't got a digital camera take a traditional photograph - we can scan it ourselves if neccessary.

Finally,if you leave items in sight in your car your asking to be visited by a brick through the window. Just ask the surfers last month at Saunton Down that this happened too.

I hope that this advice is taken up by as many as possible in an attempt to prevent crime and prevent loss of your sometimes extremely expensive equipement. Just remember, if you get it stolen - YOUR NOT SURFING.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoy a crime free summer.





PC 2745 Paul (Taff) Greening,
Neighbourhood Beat Manager Braunton Rural/Coastal,
Braunton Police Station,
Devon and Cornwall Constabulary.
Tel: 01271 818204 (Station no)
08452 777444 (Central no)
E-Mail:Paul.Greening@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk

Credit to Trev Lumley from www.eyeball-surfcheck.co.uk
_________________

[MrJoe]

Stealing someones gear whilst they're surfing is like steeling someones dog; it just doesn't be done...

[Surfing-Innovation]

Similar warnings are posted every year.

For anyone new to surfing, there ARE people who hang around car parks or the surrounding dunes watching people 'hiding' their keys - using binos if needed.

There are also people all too quick to walk past a car with boards on the roof, pop out a sharp blade and cut whatever is holding those boards to the rack and then waltz off with them.

Same goes for camp sites and holiday parks (or holiday cottages). Leave your boards/wetsuits/etc outside overnight and you're ASKING for some scrote to have away with them!

If you're at Saunton, leave your keys at the cafe - they don't mind! Use a key box, but don't hide the bloody things in the 'normal' places (I won't say what they are in case we have scrotes reading this too!!)

If you're leaving boards on a rack, get a fin box lock of some description....

Oh - and if you ARE a scrote reading this and have any thoughts about nicking MY gear, please bear in mind that if I so much as catch a sniff of you attempting to do so, I will cut your f***ing gonads off and shove them down your throat!!

[Jimi]

Oh - and if you ARE a scrote reading this and have any thoughts about nicking MY gear, please bear in mind that if I so much as catch a sniff of you attempting to do so, I will cut your f***ing gonads off and shove them down your throat!!

Well said!

[Old Guys Rule]

Does anyone no where you can get one of those lock boxes that goes in the trailer hitch in the states?

[Old Guys Rule]

If anyone is interested in the trailer hitch hide a key here is the URL

http://www.neverlockedout.com

They cost $70 us.

[Milo]

Had my van done twice last year, screw driver through the door lock. If any thieving scum are reading this, stuffed your game up boys, i don`t need keys anymore i just hot wire the thing

[Otter]

Hang 'em high

[pxk101]

Thanks for all the useful information but what we need is 1. a properly organised key storage facility at the car parks. 2. Security - either a person or cameras - we have to pay in the car parks - why not spend some profit on security? The fact that we have neither means that security is not taken seriously.