2012 Defender attempted theft in Todmorden, organised crime.

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Black Stone

Black Stone

Member
Posts
22
Location
Todmorden
Hello, last night around midnight my Defender was subject to an attempted theft by four men. I returned home at 10.30pm then went through the same security procedure, adding the Disklok to the steering wheel then the clutch claw to the clutch and break pedal. I then locked my Defender and went bed. At 1pm I was woken up with that most dreaded of phone calls from the police, an attempted theft of the vehicle. I looked outside to see a police car next to the Defender about 20 meters from my flat. The thieves had been interrupted by a passer by who phoned the police, the four men scarpered leaving a scene of destruction.
Both headlamps and indicators had been stripped and left and right hand wiring looms were hanging out! I immediately realised it was organised as they'd targeted the alarm system and central locking. Inside the Disklok had been pincered open at the bottom hinge and removed. The brake pedal had been sawn off leaving the clutch claw attached to the clutch pedal. The steering column was in bits with wires everywhere. On closer inspection the ignition barrel had had something jammed into it to try and start it. The Defender was also parked under cctv which hasn't seemed to bother them in the slightest. As you can imagine I was and still am devastated. You assume its never going to happen and the relocation of the alarm system was next on my list.

The police were actually very helpful and stayed with it until a recovery vehicle collected it around 3am. It was clearly a targeted theft and happened very quickly, I have to say that although they found ways around the metal work security, it definitely slowed them down, and thankfully the police were notified and arrived pretty quickly.
Its an awful experience to go through especially when ive only had it 6 weeks. Make sure you do all you can to protect these vehicles from organised crime units. The damage is awaiting assessment by the insurer so hopefully it wont take too long to get her back. I'll definitely be looking into more security options and a tracker device.
 
Thanks for letting us know. Hopefully this will make other tratter owners think about protecting their vehicles with increased security. It also gives us an idea of how they go about nicking them in order to betterer protect them. Headlights out to disable the horn is a well known trick.
 
Black Stone said:
Hello, last night around midnight my Defender was subject to an attempted theft by four men. I returned home at 10.30pm then went through the same security procedure, adding the Disklok to the steering wheel then the clutch claw to the clutch and break pedal. I then locked my Defender and went bed. At 1pm I was woken up with that most dreaded of phone calls from the police, an attempted theft of the vehicle. I looked outside to see a police car next to the Defender about 20 meters from my flat. The thieves had been interrupted by a passer by who phoned the police, the four men scarpered leaving a scene of destruction.
Both headlamps and indicators had been stripped and left and right hand wiring looms were hanging out! I immediately realised it was organised as they'd targeted the alarm system and central locking. Inside the Disklok had been pincered open at the bottom hinge and removed. The brake pedal had been sawn off leaving the clutch claw attached to the clutch pedal. The steering column was in bits with wires everywhere. On closer inspection the ignition barrel had had something jammed into it to try and start it. The Defender was also parked under cctv which hasn't seemed to bother them in the slightest. As you can imagine I was and still am devastated. You assume its never going to happen and the relocation of the alarm system was next on my list.

The police were actually very helpful and stayed with it until a recovery vehicle collected it around 3am. It was clearly a targeted theft and happened very quickly, I have to say that although they found ways around the metal work security, it definitely slowed them down, and thankfully the police were notified and arrived pretty quickly.
Its an awful experience to go through especially when ive only had it 6 weeks. Make sure you do all you can to protect these vehicles from organised crime units. The damage is awaiting assessment by the insurer so hopefully it wont take too long to get her back. I'll definitely be looking into more security options and a tracker device.
Click to expand...
Ouch, we almost moved there....
Its not a waste, all the security devices you had on are why you still have it.
 
Hippo said:
Thanks for letting us know. Hopefully this will make other tratter owners think about protecting their vehicles with increased security. It also gives us an idea of how they go about nicking them in order to betterer protect them. Headlights out to disable the horn is a well known trick.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that, isn't there always a secondary horn with alarms ?
 
I found out last night via FB that a black 110 was stolen in Halifax at 3am, they must have moved on to that one after failing to steal mine.
 
ER1C said:
I didn't know that, isn't there always a secondary horn with alarms ?
Click to expand...
Some LR's have a BBUS battery backed up sounder. Not sure if tratters do. If it were my tratter I would have fitted my own alarm, with vibration and movement sensing.
 
ER1C said:
isn't there always a secondary horn with alarms ?
Click to expand...
Later defenders (Pumas) have either the horn or a BBUS as an alarm sounder, but not both. (Normally). When the scum tried (unsuccessfully) to nick my landy they disabled both just to be on the safe side.
 
How brazen were the thieves? Was it parked on the side of the road or in a car park compound used by the flat owners? Could they be seen from the road and other houses/flats or not?

Thinking about this some more... yer very lucky as they were well prepared for the job in hand and well on their way to starting to move it after doing most the prep work. I would assume there's lots of paw prints on it. Will the police look for prints?

Can peeps spread the word to other sites like tratter2 and landywatch.
 
It was parked in view of the main Halifax Road under cctv which covers a GP car park. It’s in good view of my flat but not really well lit so my fault there. Some decent security on it though but as you say they were carrying the right tools for the job. Very lucky that they were interrupted and the police were informed. I doubt they’ll be prints but you never know.
 
The local fun fair packed up last night off the playing fields. I popped outside about midnight to have a last check around and two cars pulled up within seconds warning me that persons had been spotted wandering the streets checking for open house and car doors. Even the local plod were cruising round.
The first car, actually a van told me he heard them try all his but the vibration alarm on his van went off. Just thought I’d warn you he said, I know those don’t actually lock, pointing at my series.
 
When you say the Disc Lock was “pincered open” do you mean they broke the lower pivot and removed it, or did they prise it off the steering wheel intact.
And was it an actual “DiscLok” or one of the other brands of disc style steering wheel lock.
 
lightning said:
When you say the Disc Lock was “pincered open” do you mean they broke the lower pivot and removed it, or did they prise it off the steering wheel intact.
And was it an actual “DiscLok” or one of the other brands of disc style steering wheel lock.
Click to expand...
There are photos of it on landywatch. They made quite an effort!
 
Yes had a look and at least it slowed them down.
Together with your other security it (just) saved your Land Rover.
Which l guess is a result.
 
Last edited:
6885CFCE-A777-4789-B392-20C464CED5A5.jpeg
lightning said:
When you say the Disc Lock was “pincered open” do you mean they broke the lower pivot and removed it, or did they prise it off the steering wheel intact.
And was it an actual “DiscLok” or one of the other brands of disc style steering wheel lock.
Click to expand...
Hello , it was a disklok .. not a copy. They pincered it off by attacking the hinge at the bottom.
 
Well they certainly worked hard to get that disclok off.
I guess if thieves are that determined any security can be defeated.
But at least it slowed them down. And they didn’t get the Land Rover.
 
Looks to me like they started the cut with a hacksaw and then used a large (home made?) old fashioned can opener to finish the job. The kind of opener you had to stab into the can lid and use muscle power to work your way round. Youngsters under 50 won't remember them of course - all ring pull these days.
 
The trouble is they take the opinion that the chances are they wont get caught, because they in all likelihood, wont.
Most of these just get a CRN and passed on to insurance, hardly never investigated in any meaningful way.
And if they are extremely unlucky and get caught, probably a slap on the wrist or community service... or a short spell... until the consequences of this are higher, nothing will change unfortunately.
 
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