UPDATED A burglar was caught at the weekend by neighbours in Putney who grabbed him and clung on as he went over a garden fence.
They were still holding him when police reached Disraeli Road about ten minutes later. He was arrested and taken into custody.
“The residents showed great courage,” the local Met team told Thamesfield ward in a message just before 5pm, noting that they had “exercised their citizen’s arrest power to detain the suspect”.
The same message ended by asking everyone to consider their own safety.
Taking the law into your own hands and grabbing a burglar yourself is legal, but not in every case. Under section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, you need reasonable grounds to think the person is committing an offence serious enough to reach a crown court. You also have to believe holding them is necessary, to stop someone getting hurt, to stop damage, or to stop the person getting away before an officer can take over. And it has to look to you as though a police officer could not realistically do it instead.
In this case, all the conditions were met as the burglar tried to high-tail it through Disraeli back gardens having been spotted and was met with locals who have had enough of a recent increase in crime in the neighbourhood, including men caught peering through letterboxes in the early hours, and false callers trying to talk their way into homes.
By the time it was over, marked and unmarked police cars had closed Disraeli Road. Thamesfield’s police ward panel set its policing priorities earlier this month at a public meeting, the forum where residents say what they want officers working on.
The man has not been named and so far it is not known what he was arrested on suspicion of, or whether he has been charged.
One account going round the surrounding streets says the man was stopped by a single resident and their Alsatian. The police account reported neighbours, plural, and made no mention of a dog.
Were you there? If you saw what happened, or you know who stopped him, or whether there was a dog, we would like to hear from you. Email news@putney.news.
UPDATE, 15 September: The Metropolitan Police has confirmed the man was arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary and criminal damage. He has since been released with no further action, the Met said, after the Crown Prosecution Service determined the evidential threshold for charge had not been met.
Well done those citizens!