A personal opinion from a crime scene examiner

As a crime scene examiner I have spent the last twelve years of my working life searching for clues inside the scenes of literally thousands of burglaries in family homes.

In recent years the view portrayed by the advertising media of a house burglary is a trashed home with paint splattered on the walls, furnishing ripped or smashed and anything of value has been stolen.

The truth is, scenes such as this are very rare, the majority of burglars are in and out with in seconds.

The last thing a burglar wants is to be caught and spend the next few hours in a police cell, the first and only thing the burglar wants is items of your property that can be quickly and easily sold in order to feed a drug habit.

Stolen property is sold on within minutes of the theft, the thief has not got the time or the patients to remove any identifying marks and the prospective receiver can’t take the chance of being caught in possession of marked property. As part of my duties I take photographs of recovered stolen property, you may be surprised to know that the police recover tons of property that is believed to be stolen. I would say that 95% of the items that I have photographed that should have a serial number still displays that serial number intact and undamaged. Only occasionally have I photographed items that are marked with a postcode, I can only assume that the postcode is either easy to wipe off or it has never been written on. to register your serial numbers click here.

I have witness first hand house burglaries where the owner has clearly and visibly marked items, the thief has obviously seen the markings and has not stolen that item. There’s no point in stealing what you can’t sell. For details on myserialnumbers labels click here.

Marked items that have deliberately been left by the offender prove that marking your property so that the police can trace you is a clear deterrent.

I also have also seen pretty well everyway a burglar breaks into a house and all to often that burglary could have been prevented or at the very least the offender should have been made to work a lot harder.

Entry through a door

The five most used MO’s

1. Unlocked UPVC door
2. Break a glass panel next to a Yale type lock, reach in and open the door
3. The big Boot.
4. Bogus Caller
5. Undercover

The UPVC door or other open door

If you have a UPVC door, make sure that it is locked with a key when you are in. Many burglars are opportunist they look for property where the resident are occupied in the garden or another part of the house. The offender simply sneaks in through the insecure UPVC front door, quickly grabbing one or two items, a purse or a games machine and then they’re gone. It may even be hours before you realise you have suffered a burglary.

Latch

Many older wooden doors only have a night latch fitted, this is probably the most popular of all front door latches. This type of lock alone will never stand up to the big boot or the heavy shoulder.

Forget picking locks and skeleton keys that never happens, sometimes if you have a poorly fitted door there maybe a small gap between the frame and the door, enough to slip in a piece of bendy plastic that will push back the latch, but again this is rare.

More likely the burglar will break or remove a small leaded light or glass panel near to the catch then simply reach in and open the door.

Many of these latch locks are now produced with a dead lock facility, this means you can double lock the door when you leave making it impossible to open the door without a key. These locks are also supplied with metal keeps that fit deep into the doorframe, when fitted properly they will offer more resistance to the bodily pressure from a burglar.

Bodily pressure

In recent years a common MO used on front doors has been bodily pressure. Here there is no finesse, no skill, no jemmy, no plastic strips. Just a big size nine boot.

The door is hit with such force that within in one or two blows it has burst open or it is smashed in half or even completely knocked out of the frame.

Victims of this type of front door entry are always flabbergasted that the burglar has got in this way and in broad daylight. Click here to read the true account from real victims of burglary. Click here to tell us your story and we will add it to our site.

Your insurers instructions will be that you should fit a British Standard 5 lever mortise lock. I can tell you that on it’s own a five lever mortise will not defeat the big boot.

In order to fit a five-lever lock a hole will be chiselled out of the middle of the door, if not done properly this will weaken the door at the mid point. A single blow in the right place and the thin wood around lock area will break and the door will swings open leaving the lock sitting uselessly in the keep.

If by chance the door does survive, the frame may not, often a big chunk of the frame breaks away from the lock keep as the door burst open.

Sometime the more proficient front door burglar will see that you have more than one lock fitted and may well think that it will make too much noise and take too much effort to force the door open at the opening edge. But not to be defeated they go straight for the hinged edge, probably because your door is hanging on only two hinges, one good boot near to the lower hinge will smash that hinge away from the frame, within seconds the bottom corner of the door is pushed inwards and upwards breaking the top hinge from the frame.

Then there’s the half glazed exterior doors that have a fixed lower plywood panel., all I can say about this type of door is:-

Replace it with a different kind of door or at the very least get a carpenter or a DIY enthusiast to neatly board over the ply wood panel inside and outside. The thin plywood wood panel in easily kicked out leaving a hole large enough to push a television set through.

Oh yes and don’t leave the key in the lock on the inside of the door or hanging from a hook nearby. Burglars look through your kitchen window and see the key rack and because its near the door they need only make a small hole in the glass and reach in for the key. Worse still of course is to leave the key in the lock. I‘ve been to literally hundreds of burglaries where the key has been left in the half glazed kitchen door. ‘We never gave it a thought’ the victim’s say.

Bogus callers

Everyone knows about bogus callers, even my 85 years old grandma knew not to let in

The man from the council (she didn’t even live in a council house)

But she did let him in and he stole £250 out of her handbag, she was so upset.

It would be an offence to pond life to compare bogus burglars with pond life, they are much less than that, they are indeed the scum of this earth.

There is only one way to deal with unwanted or unsolicited callers,

• Don’t open the door,
• Don’t enter into a conversation with them.
• Tell them to go away.

If they won’t, then you should call a friend a relative or the police.

If there is a genuine emergency, YOU WILL ALREADY KNOW ABOUT IT

In the street there will be lots of activity, police cars, fire engines etc. and it will be a uniformed police officer knocking at your door.

Under cover

Another thing that you’re average front door burglar looks for is COVER, are there bushes or trees concealing the front door, maybe a parked vehicle or a caravan. Is the there an insecure porch door? providing the perfect hiding place from the nosey neighbours.

I would estimate that a 20% of the burglaries I have examined, entry has been gain through the front door in daylight when there are neighbours nearby.

I don’t go to many house burglaries where the burglar has activated the alarm, but when I do entry has nearly always been gained through the front door. The burglar knows that this is your entry exit point, this gives then an extra twenty seconds or so to find you alarm control panel and smash it off the wall, remove that battery before the external bell is activated. If you have an alarm or you are considering an alarm then it is without doubt the very best thing you can install to protect your property. Click here to read my opinion on house alarms.

The last thing you want is a Scene of Crime Officer examining your doors, these simple solutions will keep us away.

• Lock UPVC doors when you are in.
• On wooden doors fit extra bolts near the top and the bottom of the opening edge.
• Replace that old slip latches with modern deadlock variety and specially designed door frame keeps
• Check that the door fits snugly into the frame when closed.
• Five lever locks should be fitted by a professional who will chisel out the minimum amount of wood and fit the lock so that it becomes part of the doors strengths, instead of adding to its weakness.
• If there is a weak spot on the frame consider a fitting metal strip down the inside surfaces of the doorframe.
• Examine the hinges, there should be a minimum of three and don’t forget the screws, old screws may have become brittle and will easily snap. Believe me when I tell you a dozen new screws can prevent a burglary.
• Don’t provide the burglar with cover, cut back bushes and trees, move that caravan.
• Lock your porch door, it is your first line of defence.
• Add extra protection to weak ply wood panels.
• Glass panel doors, don’t leave the key in the lock or handing on the wall nearby
• Don’t open your front door to unsolicited callers.

Other types of door

French double doors

Most French door open outwards, if there is only one mid point lock in operation then this type of door is quite weak. The burglar need only pull hard on the external handles and the doors will easily open. Its a good idea to fit and use mortice rack bolts at the top and bottom of the door.

I went to a house once where the owner had deliberately used smaller screws for the external handles, which were fine for everyday use, but when the burglar pulled hard on the handles they came away in his hand, now with nothing to grip he went and broke in next door.

Patio Doors

There are lots of anti theft devices for patio doors and for sure you should have and extra lock fitted at the base.

You should also make sure that the door cannot be lifted, the simplest way is to screw wood blocks of a suitable depth into the channel above the door.

The best lock I have ever seen was a piece of painted timber wedged on the inside between the handle and the fixed window. Simple and effective.

Windows

If you are considering replacing window then look for windows with the new British standard 7950 kite mark. This has been established to set specific manufacturing standards of design and security.

Needless to say your windows should have locks that should be used.

However I have seen many occasions when a burglar has successfully forced open a locked window, often the lock has worked but the screws have failed and were pulled out of the wooden or metal frame. It may be better to use slightly longer screws and fit the lock in the location where there is the most play this is the weakest point.

I have been to many house where householder have screwed window shut that they say they never use, but a word of caution if you are considering such an act. A opening window could also be your means of escape in the event of a fire, don’t cut off your escape routes. Its better to fit good locks with the key hidden nearby. A good place is on a piece of blue tac stuck to the underside lip of the window board.

When you think about it, its just common sense

Most burglars select their targets because it offers the best and easiest opportunity.

• If you have a gate at the side of your house, don’t leave it open. Lock it if you can. and if its wrought iron that presents a view to the rear of your house, device a method of restricting that view.
• If you have ladders lock them away.
• Don’t leave garden tools or other implements lying around, the burglar will use them the gain entry.

House alarms

House alarms work. There is no doubt in my mind or any of my college’s minds.

That’s not because houses with alarms don’t get broken into, because occasionally they do.

‘Nobody takes any notice of a house alarm’ so say the people who haven’t got alarms

This statement is simply not true, at least one person will be taking notice of the alarm and person is the burglar. Having activated the alarm he cannot take the risk that someone is already dialling 999 and who knows there may even be a bobby just around the corner.

The burglar is now literally on the clock, in only a few seconds he will grab whatever he can, usually a video or a jewellery box and then he’s gone.

This is what happens at a house burglary where there is an alarm activation.

• A burglar is in your street and looking for a target, your house is clearly alarmed, your house is not selected THE ALARM HAS WORKED
• Your house is selected but the alarm activates and the external bell starts ringing the moment the burglar attempts to gain entry or when he first steps into the house. The burglar immediately runs away. THE ALARM HAS WORKED.
• The burglar activates the alarm but decides to take a chance and grabs a DVD player or similar. But he has had no time to search the rest of the house. THE ALARM HAS WORKED the family feel relieved that the alarm confined the offender to one or two rooms.
• Without an alarm there may have been a full house search leaving the lady of the house feeling in someway defiled as the intruder has searched through her underwear drawer. The man of the house is just plain angry, his blood pressure is a bursting point. In my experience where the alarm has activated and the searching and loss has been minimal then the victims are relieved and more relaxed. THE ALARM HAS WORKED
• Scene of crime officers don’t examine many house’s that have working alarms, that’s a fact and proves THAT ALARMS WORK.

Here is my alarm checklist

Arrange a number of surveys, by the time you have completed your third you will know everything you need to know about alarms and you’ll be able to tell the forth surveyor exactly what you want.

Sometimes it difficult to know who is reputable, you local crime prevention officer may have a list of approved installer. A friend or relatives recommendation is another good way to decide. Look who has an alarm in your street, does their alarm regularly activate, if it does then maybe that’s a company to avoid. But don’t select a company just because the alarm never activates, it may be because your neighbour never switches it on.

Make sure that you have an internal and external siren. It just as important that the burglar know the alarm has been activated.

The most important part of the alarm is the control panel. If someone breaks into your house knowing you have an alarm, then it’s a good bet that that burglar knows how to disrupt the control panel.

The control panel should be hidden in another secure part of the house. Any reputable installer will tell you this. I have only limited knowledge of alarms but I know that if I could get to your control panel quickly then even I could stop the bells from ringing and if I can do that within 20 seconds (that’s a long time) then your neighbours may just think that it is a false alarm and won’t bother investigating. There is no skill here its just brute force, all the kid burglars know how to do it

You might also want to consider having an external bell box that has its own independent battery back up, so if someone does disrupt the control panel it will not affect the external bell.

You should have only one entry/exit point and keep you entry exit time down to a minimum. At burglaries in alarmed house’s entry is often through the front door because from this point there is a delay on the alarm. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A STRONG AND SECURE ENTRY/EXIT DOOR.

Get the alarm serviced regularly the battery backup is the important thing here. An old battery won’t last that long during a power cut.

In order to cut down on cost many houses do not have alarm sensors in the bedrooms, this is fine, but if your master bedrooms or other important first floor rooms over look an extension or conservatory roof or even a canopy then you should consider having a sensor fitted to those room. Many people don’t and the burglars know it.

Alarms aren’t as expensive as you might think, If you have one fitted I can’t guarantee that you won’t get burgled but I can say with confidence that your will have significantly reduced your chances