23 replies to this topic

[Chris_Baker]

The 6 foot plus bronze statue that forms the village war memorial at Bucquoy has been stolen. http://www.lavoixdun...ant-le-mo.shtml

Thieving scumbags are not confined to the UK.

[bmac]

I am not a violent man but there are some people who just deserve a good kicking.

[Jim_Grundy]

Groan...............

[trenchtrotter]

Double groan......there is little one can do to stop this. They are trying to introduce non cash payment deals for UK scrap dealers but that will only affect the law abiding dealers. Tougher sentances are welcome but wont deter. As long as the value of scrap metal is high we will suffer. And with the economy it will be a long suffering.

Only consolation is occasionally when these thieves target copper wire from electric exchanges they sometimes fry themselves!!!!

A depressed and saddened TT

[uncle fester]

I have to say nothing surprises me anymore some people have no sense of reverence.
No doubt excuses will be forth coming, hard life, recession,no prospects or job.
Personally a good lashing with the cat o' nine tails would do nicely.

[auchonvillerssomme]

I can't think where that memorial was located, but shifting 200kgs of bronze takes some doing without any noise or anyone noticing, obviously either professional or very lucky.

[John Hartley]

An interesting article on the subject in today's Sunday Times.

Reporters, posing as thieves, attempt to offload a memorial and a load of scrap copper on a selection of scrap metal dealers in the UK. Half of them turn down the "crooks" immediately. Several more turn them down when the "crooks" confirm that the stuff's been nicked.Leaving only one dealer prepared to give them a "good price, no questions asked".

[micks]

I,m a advocate of public humiliation
bring back the medieval stocks.

micks

[Ken Lees]

I'm a big believer in recycling, but there are limits.

[Connaught Stranger]

Recycling of the thieves via an industrial wood chipper gets my vote.

In this day and age it would NOT be in the realms of impossibility to have such monuments under the watch of a CCTV system.

Connaught Stranger.

[seadog]

I have also posted the following on another thread but it seems to apply to this one as well:

UK ONLY

The Sunday Times today has a two page spread on metal theft, here are some statistics which members may find interesting:-

Estimated cost to the economy (p.a)£1 billion (Acpo).

300 War Memorials targeted each month (War Memorial Trust).

7,000 thefts from the energy network in the past year resulting in 290 hours of power cuts.

1,602 thefts of cabling between April – October leading to 1,969 cancelled trains and 167 days worth of delays.

1,020 thefts of copper cabling reported by BT this summer alone.

10 churches a day targeted by thieves, £25 million paid out by Church insurers in respect of 9,500 claims in the last five years.

Looks like the problem is bigger that we thought!

Norman

[hesmond]

What suprises me is and that i assume memorial is outside the village church ? that no one spotted removal of the statue ,even taking rural France can be pretty quite with not many people about ?

[Tom Morgan]

The memorial stands outside the Mairie not far from the main crossroad in the middle of the village. There are houses on either side.  There is plenty of room for maneouvring a vehicle in order to take the statue away, but they must have been fast workers not to have disturbed anyone.

Tom

Attached Files

•  bucquoy.jpg   56.32K   1 downloads

[kmcgee]

Tom Morgan, on 04 December 2011 - 06:33 PM, said:

The memorial stands outside the Mairie not far from the main crossroad in the middle of the village. There are houses on either side.  There is plenty of room for maneouvring a vehicle in order to take the statue away, but they must have been fast workers not to have disturbed anyone.

Tom

Looking at the opposite side of the road there is a bank and the building with the rounded end seems to be a theatre or at least non-domestic property. The house to the right (No. 23) has no windows on the gable end.They have chosen a site that appears to have no one overlooking it out of working hours. Must admit that I searched for this earlier without success.

Kevin

[hesmond]

As some one who lives not to far away from the scene of the crime ,am still suprised no one local is or was aware of the statue being lifited ? ,also in the area around their are thousands of bronze monuments from the great war and WW 2 my own village has 2 from WW2 ,thats with out all the plaques on graves in the church yards ,in the past few years the local markets have had the odd old comrades plaque ,but the sales seem to be based on the item as itself rather than scrap value ,  with out stateing the obvious ,but here goes there is a reasonable large community of gypseys ect here ,but with all due respect have found them to be on the whole reasonable ,if any crime does go on the police and locals normaly look to theives operating from Lillie ,which in the past had a group of thives targeting isolated farms ect .

Also as some one who had a job involveing civil construction ,the removal of the statue would i assume be quite involved and the people doing the job be equiped adaquatly ?

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

hesmond, on 05 December 2011 - 10:39 AM, said:

... Also as some one who had a job involveing civil construction ,the removal of the statue would i assume be quite involved and the people doing the job be equiped adaquatly ?

On the contrary – a truck with a Hiab type lift could be rigged onto a statue like that in seconds, and then it would just be down to the strength of the statue’s anchoring against the power of the Hiab. Drive-in to drive-off could probably be less than two minutes.

Given the nature of this particular memorial I’d suspect it was stolen to order for its architectural value rather than for its scrap value.

The thieves are likely to have had “unfortunate childhoods” or come from deprived backgrounds, and if caught should be given plasma TVs, a Gameboy, a holiday in the Caribbean and a big cash handout. *** forbid that anybody should suggest that they might be given a meaningful (draconian) jail term with zero comforts or consideration.

Talk elsewhere about the scrap metal industry could nearly make you laugh at the naivety of the posters. Its a cash business and largely part of the “black economy” – a haven for thieves, gangsters, and shysters. Until these pikeys are dealt with robustly the problem will never be meaningfully tackled.

Tom

[o j kirby]

Stand the thieves on the buttes on a firing range. "Targets WILL fall when hit..."

Owain.

[NigelS]

Chris_Baker, on 04 December 2011 - 09:34 AM, said:

Thieving scumbags are not confined to the UK.

A further case in France and mention of others in Germany, so sadly it appears to be a pan-European problem Click

Once in a while the thieves do come unstuck though Click

Alternatively:



NigelS

[towisuk]

Even if theives are caught in the act it doesn't end there....
A few years ago after breaking through heavily padlocked doors of a substation, with warning notices posted all over the place, a copper thief tried to saw through one of our LIVE 6.6Kv transformer feeder cables. Result....big flash bang and said thief ends up losing his hacksaw arm.
After the National Health Service had spent OUR money saving his life, he had the cheek to try to sue the firm for damages, because....(they did not make the security locks etc, difficult enough to deter him from entering the substation.)
I'm glad to say that this claim was treated with the contempt that it deserves.
BUT, that does give an insight into the mentality of these thieves, no guilt, no remorse, just bad b******s!!!

regards
Tom

[hesmond]

With all due respect lifting that off with a hiab will result i a few things ,quite funny to watch but would not result in said statue being in much of a state to be on your patio .

[MartinBennitt]

another one went a couple of days ago. A bronze statue was removed from the memorial at Feuchy, near Arras, on Thursday night. Weighing 400 kilos, it was modelled on the daughter of sculptor Jules Dechin. Police and the mayor assume it was taken for the scrap value.

cheers Martin B

[welshdoc]

It just Bl***dy well saddens me. More than that it breaks my heart to see such dissrespect for those who laid down their lives for us all.

[auchonvillerssomme]

Well it looks like some action may be taken against metal thefts in the UK, someone has very cleverly linked it to the olympics and suggested that it might cause disruption. P*liticians will take notice now I think.

[fredkarno]

Field Punishment Number 1 me thinks.