Stolen goods 'roadshows' axed

Scotland Yard is to make radical changes to its flagship Operation Bumblebee campaign against burglary by scrapping the highly popular "roadshows" of stolen goods.

The move has led to claims that police will be forced to return stolen property to suspected criminals because they cannot identify their real owners.

Some suspected burglars and "fences" - those who handle stolen goods - are taking writs out against the Yard to recover goods seized from them in police raids.

The original Bumblebee campaign launched in the early 1990s resulted in yearly reductions in burglary. There were massive displays of up to 10,000 pieces of stolen property which the public were invited to view to see if they could identify items stolen from their homes.

Over the years 2,000 items were returned to their owners.

The Yard also organised massive raids on the homes of suspected burglars when hundreds of items of property were seized.

Now senior officers are questioning the success of the roadshows which they claim were expensive and achieved limited success. Police also want to react more quickly to arrest individual burglars rather than carrying out mass raids on suspects.

Officers accept that some stolen property is being handed back to criminals but dispute that this has increased.

Scotland Yard says the Bumblebee initiative is being "re-focused" - pointing out a recent Christmas radio advertising campaign which uses the name. But some of the officers assigned to the operation claim it is effectively being wound up.

One former Bumblebee officer said: "The radio campaign talks about Bumblebee working for London. If only the public knew that there is no Bumblebee working for anybody right now." Acting Detective Chief Superintendent Dick Quinn, the deputy coordinator of the new Bumblebee initiative, said: "Bumblebee has a tremendous brand-name but we want to be much quicker in the way we react to burglaries.

"We are getting tremendous results from forensic tests at burglary scenes and we want to act on those results immediately. If we can react quickly we have a good chance of not only recovering property but also getting the suspect."

A recent operation to target handlers of stolen goods recovered around £2million of suspected stolen property. So far officers have identified and returned £250,000 worth of antiques and jewellery after exhibiting it on the Met's website.

Mr Quinn said: "We want to get away from the general roadshows where people often travelled a long way on the off chance of identifying their property. Often they would be disappointed."

Former Bumblebee police officers refused to speak publicly because of Scotland Yard's sensitivity over the issue. One said: "People are still being told that Bumblebee is up and running and the police are working hard at burglary. The truth is, we are not working as hard as we were.

"Bumblebee was fantastic at returning stolen items to their owners. The public loved it, they could see that the police were actually doing something about getting their property back."

Burglary rates in London last year fell to their lowest level in 20 years though in recent months break-ins have been increasing again. In October the rate jumped 15 per cent compared to the same period last year. However, in some boroughs the increase reached 40 per cent.