Interview with the National Plant Intelligent Unit's Ian Elliott

Colin Sowman talks to Detective Constable Ian Elliott of the Metropolitan Police about the recently formed National Plant Intelligence unit.

Why do we need a National Plant Intelligence unit?

That goes back to the question you posed at the beginning how much does plant theft cost? We don't know and we don't know because each of the 43 police authorities in the UK record plant theft in their own area and they are not collated nationally. So if over a weekend a digger goes missing in one authority, a roller in another and a dumper in a third, they are all individual thefts. Put them together and you start to see patterns, the activities if criminal gangs begin to emerge, it becomes evident what type of machinery is popular and areas of the country become particular hot-spots.

So is that what the new Unit will do, collate the information about plant thefts?

Collating information from all the police areas is part of its remit. And that in itself will have a tremendous benefit in that if this proves that plant theft really is running at £1m per week, it is likely to get a much higher priority within the police.

And having drawn together information, the unit will look for patterns of criminal behaviour and actively work with the various forces to target gangs. Instead of waiting for criminals to run out of luck and get caught because we happened across them in a spot check, the unit can home in on the gangs, set up surveillance and use the other powers we have to put them out of action.

How many people will work in the new unit?

There will be two dedicated detectives and a full-time analyst who will identify trends and crime rings. Once a target has been identified they will enlist the help of the relevant force to make raids, arrests and so on. They will have all the resources available to that force at their disposal.

That's a very small staff will they really be able to do anything to improve the frankly abysmal recovery rate for stolen plant?

Very much so. The unit will act as a centre of excellence for all matters relating to plant theft. Officers on the beat across the UK can call in at any time if they have a query regarding plant -be that 'what am I looking at?' to 'how would somebody steal a crusher?'

With the knowledge that those in the unit build up, they will be able to advise officers where machines might be heading, how they are moved and what to look for at crime scenes or if they are suspicious about a machine being moved on a truck.

This will also tie in with the new Cesar scheme which removes some of the biggest obstacles to the police recovering stolen plant: we can't identify the machine or the owner. And in many instances the machine hasn't been reported missing and if it has, the details are almost universally incorrect. Computers cannot overcome such inaccuracies.

This initiative is costing some £180,000, where's the money coming from?

Funding is coming from two sources: firstly there is support from five of the big insurance companies - Alliance, Norwich Union, Zurich, HSB Haughton and Royal + Sun Alliance. They are the ones who are losing out most to the criminals as they pay out for the majority of stolen plant -although even they don't know everything that goes missing as some owners self-insure.

Between them, the five insurers are putting up £130,000.

Secondly, for every machine registered with Cesar, the Construction Equipment Association (which administers the scheme) pays a levy towards the running of the unit. This is expected to be some £50,000 in year one. Contractor Clancy Docwra is also donating a machine for training purposes.

As time goes on we will use the Proceeds of Crime act to get seize money and goods from the criminals which will also be ploughed back into the unit.

Is that why you are so keen on the Cesar scheme?

No. The Cesar scheme stands on its own merits and this is being increasing recognised by the growing list of manufacturers registering all their machines. I like the system because it allows police officers to identify a machine and its rightful owners in 30 seconds - even if all the stickers have been removed. It recently took me six hours to identify one un-registered digger as belonging to a national plant hire company. If officers know they can find the details of a machine in under a minute, they are more likely to check out a suspicious low loader in the middle of wet the night stopped at a motorway service station. That's why I'm such a passionate advocate of Cesar.

What do you expect the first effect of the Unit to be and when do you expect this to become evident?

Well recovery rate for stolen motor vehicles is around 50% whereas for plant the figure is more like 5%. I'd like to see the figure for plant get much closer to that for motor vehicles. It won't happen overnight because, for instance, the number of Cesar registered machine is only just past 12,000, but I do think the help the Unit can give officers on the beat will give a big boost to the recovery rate.

In reality the Unit needs a couple of years to become fully effective.

Who will the Unit report to and how much weight will be given to what it says and finds?

It will report to the Metropolitan Police because that's where it is located. However, it will work in partnership with the other parties such as the Port Authorities, the Plant Theft Action Group, insurance companies and the Construction Industry Theft Solutions.