Community Life

Number plate theft makes up a quarter of all vehicle crime committed in borough. Even though the issue is a national one, the reasons behind the disproportionate figures in Redbridge is puzzling the police.

The Chief Inspector of Operations at Ilford Police station says, even after extensive research they've not been able to determine the cause of the problem. Chief Inspector, Tony Gowen:

"We don't know the real reasons. We've looked into many initiatives whether it's congestion charging, parking, insurance...and because we don't have those answers we are looking at opportunities on how we can prevent it happening in the first place."

Crown Motors in Gants Hill is one of sixty garages taking part in the initiative "N1K UR REG." Each garage is given these security screws and the police hope they will encourage customers to have them replace their existing screws. Half a million screws will have been distributed.

The General Manager at  Crown Motors says there's a need for such measures. Stuart Lord:

"I've been victim of the crime myself on the vehicles we have on our forecourts. So I was very very pleased there's now a measure out there to prevent this sort of crime from happening."