Silent crime: Burglars target thousands of West Midlands homes, leaving victims shaken for life

The survey by online insurance company Quotezone.co.uk found that in 2022, in the West Midlands alone, some 15,844 homes were burgled.

It may take a burglar two minutes or two hours to flip a home, but the feeling of offense after car keys or sentimental family heirlooms are stolen can last a lifetime.

The victims cross all social strata. Everyone deserves to feel safe when they close their front door.

The most professional thieves tend to target the homes and supercars of the wealthy, but victims in less affluent areas are most often the victims of opportunistic thieves who prey on windows and doors left ajar or unlocked, or of local criminal gangs possibly targeting retail store engines. .

Former Wolves striker Raul Jimenez and his family were at their Claregate home in 2022 when prolific criminal Patrick Rafferty and his gang broke in. Crawling downstairs, Rafferty helped himself to electronics and keys to an Audi Q8 and a Range Rover, worth more than £130,000.

A few miles away in West Bromwich, a vulnerable disabled pensioner living in shared accommodation was woken by 6ft 3in Peter Hines towering over her bed, rummaging through her handbag which was on her bedside table. Worlds apart, but the multi-millionaire footballer and the woman, aged 70, could have felt exactly the same empty feeling in the aftermath of the crimes.

Rafferty, 36, was jailed for seven years for his part in ten raids and Hines, 65, of no fixed abode, was jailed for 27 months.

Judge Simon Ward regularly jails home invaders at Wolverhampton Crown Court and understands how this crime undermines the very fabric of our society.

Sentencing Walsall teenagers Rio Halls, 18, and Kyron Clifton, 19, who went on a devastating crime spree across the Black Country by attacking more than 50 homes to steal car keys, Judge Ward spoke of the “misery” they caused.

The judge said: “People should have the right to feel safe in their own homes. Your victims no longer have this peace of mind.

“If I added up every sentence for all the lives you’ve ruined, you wouldn’t get out of prison until you’re much older, but I have to take your age into consideration.”

Judge Ward sentenced Halls, of Clare Road, Coalpool, to six years and six months and Kyron Clifton, of Dangerfield Lane, Darlaston, to four years and nine months.

An unintended consequence of improved car security is that thieves are bypassing vehicle break-ins: now they want the car keys, which means breaking into homes.

A gang jailed earlier this year was still looking for keys, but they were also helping themselves to jewelry, sunglasses, laptops, phones and even bananas from a fruit bowl.

Afterward, victims often report that the thing that worries them most is the question “what if?” » The Walsall gang usually burst in when the owners were in bed, with the children lying just yards away during their raid.

Revealing her rawest emotions in court, one victim said: “Knowing they were at my house while we were all sleeping upstairs was very unsettling, it’s very scary. Who knows what might have happened if we had woken up?

It took prosecutor Nicholas Tatlow 45 minutes to list all of Halls and Clifton’s crimes. The victim added: “It really affected the community. We lived in fear. Many of these crimes were committed in a small area and over a short period of time.”

Mr Tatlow said another victim told how she struggled to sleep knowing criminals were in her home. Yet another was awakened in the early morning by an explosion and shouted at the hooded men in their doorway.

Another victim in Bilston watched CCTV footage of their three cars driving away in convoy.

A Bushbury mother has never forgotten being woken up by her cars pulling out of her driveway and has spoken of how watching security camera footage of the unfolding drama for ten minutes made her blood run cold.

A “mob” of thieves had entered her home and were wandering in and out of the downstairs rooms while the family slept upstairs.

The mother said: “Because of this I feel paranoid. I feel like I was the target of this attack. I looked at the CCTV cameras and they came right into my driveway.

“It seemed like their only goal was to target my house. I was shocked by their numbers. They outnumbered us in our house.

“Knowing that they entered my house at the hands of a mob and thinking about what could have happened makes me very uncomfortable. I wonder who is watching me. It’s a horrible feeling that makes me unsettled and upset, when I’m home and when I’m not.

“It makes me sick to know that there are people who think this is acceptable.”

Among the burglars was Ethan Holness, 20, who was also jailed for seven and a half years for his role in the death of his passenger in a stolen car in 2021. He pleaded guilty to 21 other crimes, including burglary and theft car, which earned him another two years in prison.

Burglaries often lead to a whole host of practical problems, from living without a car until a replacement car can be found, to filling out reams of insurance paperwork, to going back and forth to the pound, at the mechanic or at the police station.

The victim added: “I was left with the expense and stress of repairing and replacing the car and being left stranded while trying to move my family.”

In the end, she was able to see justice served and have the satisfaction of seeing this burglar imprisoned.

But she is in the vast minority of burglary victims, as over the past five years the number of unsolved break-ins in the West Midlands has fluctuated between eight and nine in ten.

Home Office figures show 16,371 unsolved burglaries across the West Midlands between June 2022 and June 2023, equating to 45 unsolved burglaries every day.

During this period, only 1,206 cases resulted in a suspect being charged or summoned, representing 5.62 percent of all burglaries in the region.

For advice on preventing crime, visit police.uk/cp/crime-prevention/protect-home-crime/keep-burglars-out-property/.

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