Scrap yard theft a revolving door

Oct 14 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

POLICE believe copper cabling stolen from a Perth scrap yard could be sold to a rival venture.

The 200kg theft is the latest heavy metal crime mirroring a UK-wide spike in robberies targeting lead and copper as the scrap value of non-ferrous metals goes through the roof, driven by rising demand from China.

Crooks who lifted the £200 load of cabling from a Shore Road business’s yard around 8.15pm last Sunday.

A Tayside Police spokesman said investigators were presently reviewing CCTV footage from the premises with the hope of identifying suspects.

“Ironically the crooks who stole this load of cabling may well sell it on to another dealer, possibly in the same area as all the scrap yards are along Shore Road,” he said.

Police recently probed a series of thefts at various divisional locations, at least three of which could be the work of the same perpetrators.

At one crime scene, an unattended building site on Auchterarder’s exclusive Caledonian Crescent – where some house prices nudge £2 million – rogues made off with £2500 worth of lead and copper.

“It’s quick easy money,” said the spokesman.

“In the past we’d get occasional reports about these sorts of thefts, but it’s now becoming increasingly common.”

Stripped

Around the same time, a former Morrison’s Academy boarding house in Crieff was stripped of a copper tank, piping and a number of radiators by unseen perpetrators over a two-week window period.

Meanwhile, 20ft of lead sheeting was nabbed from the roof of Kinross Parish Church, with officers later recovering more stolen lead hidden in bushes near a defunct health centre.

And in response to a tip-off, police swooped on the former Kinross High School site after a man in his 20s or 30s and wearing a high-visibility vest was seen precariously moving around on the roof in broad daylight.

“The premises are in a poor state of repair so if the suspect had fallen, then recovering him safely would have presented a real risk for fire or ambulance personnel,” said a police spokesman.

l Contact Tayside Police on 0300 111 2222 or pass information anonymously to Crimestoppers by calling 0800 555 111.