Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:"£4000 stolen from elderly woman on bus" | |
Posted by: | Francis Rowe | |
Date/Time: | 02/11/15 12:26:00 |
Well now that we know that the BTP don't investigate theft on buses perhaps we can finally put to bed the notion that they have a squad to investigate 'this kind of crime'. Andy Pease's remark that he was not surprised that the suspects were Eastern European was ill-judged not least because we don't actually know that they are. The comment is not justified by the fact that Eastern European gangs specialising in distraction theft do indeed come to this country. Distraction theft was not invented in Eastern Europe, it was well documented in England by Victorian writers like Dickens and Mayhew and it is not exclusively practised by Eastern Europeans. Gangs from other parts of Europe and South America target major tourist destinations like London. A distraction theft was attempted on me in Italy a few years ago by a Roma gang who would not necessarily be Eastern European. Loraine Pemberton's assertion that Eastern Europeans dominate theft on the public transport network is clearly made up as she has not been able to point us in the direction of sources on the internet she says she based this claim on. Hopefully in investigating the theft of this poor woman's money the Met will have moved on from this kind of lazy stereotyping that was prevalent in Andy Pease's day. |