Car Crime Alert

Please be aware that Haddenham is currently being targeted by 'steal-to-order' professional thieves who are looking to acquire high value / high performance cars (BMW, Audi, etc).

In the early hours of Tuesday morning (27th August) a couple in Dovecote were disturbed by noise outside their property and looked on in horror as a gang of four men, dressed all in black and with heads covered by balaclavas, were looking to steal their BMW M3.

The image shown on this page illustrates a much cruder approach than the one taken on Tuesday morning. The thieves were using code grabber software on a tablet or laptop to harvest the electronic code from the vehicle's key fob located in the house. They even entered the back garden of the property, trying to bounce an electronic signal from the key fob — presumably having failed to obtain the electronic code from outside the front of the house.

Thames Valley Police are reported to have said that villages like Haddenham are targeted by professional gangs from outside the area because of the relatively high number of expensive cars in the village. The more remote rural location compared with the large towns and cities also means that police response times are much slower.

It was particularly disturbing to consider that the gang who targeted the vehicle in Dovecote were aware that they had been seen by the householders and, indeed, made aggressive gestures to intimidate them and effectively prevent the residents from coming out of their house.

On this occasion the gang failed to obtain the ket code and left without the vehicle. Police arrived 30 minutes later.

One word of advice, particularly if you own a high value / high performance vehicle: place your contactless key fob in a security pouch overnight — they are readily available. Here's an example: https://www.halfords.com/motoring/car-security/car-security/halfords-anti-rfid-theft-key-wallet