00:00An unlocked window, a door left open for just a few minutes, or valuable items left in plain sight.
00:07They're the kinds of opportunities burglars often look for and they're the focus of Merseyside Police's latest summer crime prevention
00:14campaign, Think Like a Thief.
00:17It encourages residents to view their homes from the perspective of an offender and identify any weak spots before someone
00:24else does.
00:25The summer does tend to see a spike in offences of burglary and that's for a number of reasons.
00:29Predominantly that's because people are out and about just that little bit more, people are taking holidays and for those
00:35reasons there's a bigger opportunity for people to target houses that might be unoccupied.
00:40To launch the initiative, Chief Inspector Ben Wayman, the force's burglary lead, has been demonstrating common security vulnerabilities at one
00:48of Merseyside Police's training houses.
00:50What I would urge people to do is not to leave valuables in areas like this which are in easy
00:55proximity to a front door.
00:57Thieves can use devices to open your letterbox and effectively hook car keys with a pole through and back out
01:05from your door and then they can steal your car without ever having to actually come inside your address and
01:10take those car keys.
01:11So we just urge people, keep those valuables out of sight.
01:14And also when you go to bed at night, make sure they're locked away somewhere that if someone did manage
01:18to break into your home, they're not easy pickings for them to see.
01:21The advice is straightforward, keep doors and windows secured even when you're at home and make sure valuables including cash,
01:28expensive electronics and car keys are kept well out of sight.
01:32You can purchase smart doorbells, you can purchase burglar alarms but there's a lot more low cost measures available for
01:38people to help them to make their homes a lot more secure.
01:41Just going to show you a few of those now.
01:43Some of these items are available very cheaply online.
01:46Alternatively, please have a conversation with your local neighbourhood officers.
01:50There are opportunities for us to give these to you free of charge.
01:53What I'm going to show you here is what's called a Faraday bag.
01:57This bag is to simply put your keyless car key fob in when it's inside your home address.
02:02Sophisticated criminals, they can use relay devices to effectively copy or mimic some of the data from your car key
02:09fob without even coming inside your address.
02:11And that would enable them to steal the car from your driveway without actually having physical possession of your car
02:17key.
02:18There's lots of other low cost options available to you.
02:21Windows are a point of entry for a lot of burglars.
02:25They can either be because the window's been left open or they could be prized open.
02:29They can secure window locks that can bolt on the inside of your window and just make it so much
02:34harder for your window to be used by anyone to get access to your home.
02:37The campaign supports wider work already being carried out by Merseyside Police.
02:42So we're working really hard to reduce the amount of burglaries that happen in Merseyside and we can only do
02:46that with your help.
02:47Burglars reduced last year, which is great news.
02:50But also what we're making sure that we do is we will investigate every residential burglary.
02:54And we'll make sure that we use every opportunity that we have to identify people responsible for this crime.
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