Britain's most wanted include a deadly assassin, a drug smuggler and an armed robber. Conspicuous by their absence are the criminals cutting a slice of the country's £700m trade in stolen metals.
But just ask factory managers: copper kingpins top the list as their undisputed public enemy number one. Tales of metal theft soon formed the focus of a general WM investigation into crime and security (p14) for this health and safety special issue.
Victims' accounts could come straight from the cutting room floor of an action movie:?intruders suspended from high-voltage cables with a hacksaw, or sent scrambling over fences in high-octane chases with manufacturing employees.
The trouble is there are no stunt doubles for our shopfloor heroes. We must raise the profile of these vicious raids before somebody from our side is seriously hurt.
Everyone knows about copper raids on railway lines and electricity sub-stations. Police chiefs can be found lamenting the disruption caused to commuters and householders. However, mentions of the misery heaped on manufacturers are few and far between. Theft victims spoke of a muted police response to break-ins – law enforcers appear more interested in going after the cause, deemed to be illicit scrap metal dealers. That tactic may well prove to be justified, but the results are not going to appear overnight. In the meantime, an industry deemed critical to the UK's economic renaissance is having to go it alone against crimes that are putting people and profits at risk.
Our best defence has to be coming together as a community. Factory-style neighbourhood watch schemes could be hugely effective in beating the bad guys, with local operators meeting up to share the number plates of suspicious vans or CCTV footage of break-ins... all small steps that can beef up security. Don't suffer in silence, as one of the police's own crime-fighting campaigns puts it: make a start by emailing WM your own experiences of metal theft.
