Three thugs put away!

It’s not often I bring your attention to successful prosecutions on this page, but I thought this one particularly worthy of highlighting, because the story is well told on the Birmingham Mail website and is an excellent example of police work by the West Midlands Police’s Force Priorities Team led by Detective Chief Inspector Simon Wallis with Detective Constables Andy Wareham and Max Gebhard.

Two brothers, Kurtis and Lewis Richards, and a teenage schoolboy carried out a series of armed robberies at homes and crowded pubs. They targeted properties in Sutton Coldfield, Aldridge and South Staffordshire and their terrifying crime spree included six raids in just six days.  They wore black clothing and balaclavas during their raids of homes, pubs, sports clubs and businesses and used scaffolding poles to threaten their victims, who included two young children.

The crimes took place between January 4 and February 5 this year, during which time all three texted women to brag about the cash they were making, which was part of their undoing!

Read the full account here: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/jailed-birmingham-brothers-teenage-schoolboy-10421420

I don’t have the full account of their MO, so have no idea if any of these raids could have been preventable. Sometimes though, in order to preserve life and prevent injury, you’ve just got to let them get away with it and hope that the security measures that you’ve put in place will help the police in their investigations after the event. 

By security measures I’m talking about such things as CCTV recordings and DNA offender marking, but above all there must be a willingness to help the police unreservedly by giving them the evidence they need and repeating it in court. Sometimes associates need to shop people whom they suspect might be responsible before someone gets seriously injured.

Great work by West Midlands Police!