Vigilante and Proud: Catching the Street Thieves

From pickpocketing to bike theft, phone snatching to shoplifting, street crime is sweeping Britain - and so much of it now captured on our phones. With the police overstretched, there are some areas of the UK where 100% of crimes go unsolved. Communities are forced to take matters into their own hands. Our host, Rebecca Mason, an ex-police detective of more than 10 years, is helping the British public get justice. She'll meet the victims, then track down and confront the brazen criminals, who thought they'd got away with it. In this episode, Rebecca investigates the case of a criminal who has been running riot in Newham, terrorising shopkeepers, stealing in broad daylight and not even bothering to obscure his identity. She finds out where he lives and pays him a visit. She also goes on the chase of a violent gang of motorbike thieves and attempts to retrieve a bike worth £24,000 that was stolen from a victim in Southampton. Social media is a constantly updating library of evidence that continues to grow daily. Victims share footage online within hours of crimes happening to them. In this film, Rebecca hears from a shop-owner who took to Facebook to find the thieves who raided his cash and carry. And her team successfully follow the trail of an expensive bicycle that was aggressively robbed off someone by 3 perpetrators. We see what one of the thieves has to say for himself when he's ingeniously tracked to his very own doorstep. Using facial recognition technology, tracking devices, old-fashioned detective work and knowledge of the goings-on in local communities, Rebecca and her team are about to make a difference, by catching the street thieves.