I've often received emails from people talking about the world's stupidest criminals, but I never really suspected that I would actually encounter one first hand.
It began last night, shortly after we had arrived home from a friends party. Both Ant and I were in my when some strange noises began to be heard. Ant mentioned that he thought Andrew and Mark must be home, but I thought it sounded more like Caspar just throwing something about in the loungeroom and perhaps getting a little too ambitious with the ping pong balls. I had a quick look out the front of the window, just to ensure that the guys weren't home, and seeing nothing, dismissed it.
It wasn't until Ant left the room to get something to eat that I heard four loud thuds from outside that sounded more like someone hitting my car. I opened my blinds and looked more closely at my car, and noticed that there was someone standing by the passenger side. I knocked loudly on my bedroom window four times, until he looked up and saw me. Giving some pathetic salute, he started to walk off.
I raced out the front, and running around to my car, noticed a huge gapping hole in the bottom left hand corner on the passenger side. I began running after the man (in my socks and tracky pants no less), and chased him up to the corner of York St, which he had disappeared down. I decided instead of chasing him further, I would return and report the incident to the police.
I went into the police station and spoke with a Constable Stone, who was absolutely lovely, although she had already had a rather long shift. At one point, I had a thought 'bugger - I hope all that wasn't an attempt to lure us out of the house so that he could get in...'
Meanwhile, back home, Ant had seen the guy turn the corner of York St and begin to walk back our direction. Noticing Ant, the man made a retreat back around the corner again. Ant figured he would hide and watch, observing the moron turn the corner again, and continue to walk towards the house. Reaching homes a few doors away, he looked over their fence and seemed to be observing something. As he approached our drive way, he made a direct move towards my car, until Ant walked out of the shadows to make eye contact with him. Again, he winked, made some stupid salute, and walked off, before racing up a nearby street on the otherside of the road.
Shortly afterwards, I came back out of the police station, and Ant filled me in. I asked if he could go back into the police station and tell Constable Stone what he had told me, as he had a fair better description of the man than what I had. Meanwhile, I lay in wait in the shadows in case the moron should come back... almost hoping he would so that I could nab him.
Ant returned with Constable Stone, who asked me if anything had been missing from the car. I looked inside, but everything seemed to be there. The irony being, had he wanted to steal the stereo and CD's - I only keep back up burns in the car, and the stereo is on the way out, often skipping the CD's, causing the speakers to cut out, and more often than not, giving me grief.
However, it was around this point that I noticed something shiny on the ground near the passanger side tyre. Bending over, I realised our genius thief had dropped his house keys. They had a small light on it, so it seemed he was using them to see, and when I had disturbed him, dropped them in a panic. We all know the story of not returning to the scene of the crime, but without his house keys, he might be more tempted to. I smirked, realising that we had one up on him.
Just before 2pm, my mobile rang. They had caught him when a neighbour had phoned the police when he was seen trying to break into his own home. I went back, made a statement, and thanked the police for their fantastic work. I did pay for the windscreen today, but will get the invoice and have the criminal in question pay for it. Apart from a few small cuts on my left thumb from taping the 'Country And Western Greatest Hits' album to the front of my car (it was the absolutely ideal size to cover the hole), and the inconvenience of having to pay for the repair upfront, atleast I now have a new windscreen for my car and one more criminal thinking twice about opportunitistic crime.
