The very next day - Monday - I got a call at work on my mobile - the insurance had come through with the last seven of my DVDs and video games. As they were mostly new replacements for obsolete titles, I hadn't seen or played any of them. The weather was grey & miserable that day, so I was looking forward to going home and watching/playing some of them.

By the time I left work, the weather had turned warm, clear and sunny - a very pleasant spring evening. So I wasn't too surprised to see my next door neighbour (let's called him Mario - not a million miles from his real name) leaning on his gate outside his front door as I pulled in to park. I looked across and smiled but, while he waved and beckoned me over to talk, he didn't smile back.

Once I'd parked and walked over, he told me I'd been broken into again. Where we'd done a quick & dirty repair on the door, there was a new hole in the chipboard. Mario said he'd come home for his lunch break around noon and found my door swinging open with the hole in it. He called the police and waited for them to arrive, but nobody did before he had to go back to work. He assumed the police had called round after he had to go back to work (he's a delivery driver for a plumbing supplies business) because someone had closed the doors at the front & back of the house.

When I opened the door I found a note on police notepaper telling me this was indeed the case, and giving me a number to call. This I did straight away, and was told that they had "made the property secure" (i.e. closed the doors and checked nobody was inside), and that the burglary squad would try to come out that evening.

In contrast to last time, I was pretty sanguine about it, perhaps because it had seemed so odd that the burglars had left things worth stealing last time around, and because I knew I would be covered pretty straightforwardly on my insurance. The first thing I did was ring my boss to let him know what had happened, and that I'd need to take the next day off (again) to sort out the police, insurance and so on. (After last time, I knew that even if the burglary squad came out that night, the CSI team would not be there until the next day.) He was cool with this, indeed, he said to take as much time as necessary to get it sorted properly this time - he doesn't want me being broken into again any more than I do.

I was pretty certain from the start that it was the same people as the first break in - it was too convenient that they'd taken the things they'd made moves to take last time but not done so.

I rang my friends who'd been so helpful two months before, more to tell them about it than anything else - in a "you'll never believe what's just happened..." type of way. Being the star he is, Andy (not his real name) offered to come straight over. Being more or less unruffled, I told him not to bother with tools or wood, as this time I was in a cool frame of mind and knew I had the necessary tools & materials. I asked him to bring some screws as I wasn't sure mine would be long enough, and said I'd certainly appreciate the extra pair of hands & the company.

As it was such a nice evening, with at least two hours of daylight left, I waited outside for Andy to arrive, chatting to Mario. He told me he thought it was probably the same kids that had been causig the trouble the night before. He said he'd seen the tall kid and the girl in a group of 4-5 walking down the street just after he got in from work, pointing at the cars with broken bits and laughing. They also (apparently) pointed at my house and laughed.

While we were chatting, the woman who lived across the street came over to us and said that she'd also called the police after seeing me door swinging open with a fresh hole in it. She said she'd been disturbed by more shouting outside the same house that had been the target the night before, and gone to look. The man had disappeared, and a woman who said she was his mother was looking after the place, so the kids (two of whom were the tall boy and girl we'd all seen that night) dispersed pretty quickly. This was at about 10am. Immediately after this, my neighbour woman noticed my door was open. 

So we now had quite a short time window for the burglary - between 8.25am when I left for work, and 10am when she saw the kids and noticed my open, broken door. And some suspicion about possible suspects.

Meanwhile, another resident form farther down the hill saw a group of us chatting in the street (me, Mario, Andy and the neighbour woman) and came over. She started talking about the night before, asking if any of us had given our names to the police. I said I had, and that I'd also been broken into again that day. Once again, I stuck out my hand and introduced myself (it seems these days that if you don't do this yourself, nobody else will either, but they are only too pleased when you do). Let's call her Angela. She had been one of the dressing-gowned people talking to the police, and her car had been damaged. She remembered me talking to the policeman, and wanted to know if I'd got a good look at the shorter lad. I said I had, and she said she's a criminal lawyer and she had some passing knowledge of him - he's a regular trouble maker, it seems.

She told us that the boy had been in custody at the station all day (so he had about the best alibi possible, the little turd!), and that he was being charged the next day. But - get this - the offences he was going to be charged with related to an assault and a weapons charge (another knife) from the Saturday night, when he'd 'done a runner' as soon as police arrived. So the prick was not only a troublemaker who could handle his ale, but an idiot. I mean, what kind of fuckwit commits the same crimes within spitting distance of the police two nights running?

While he might be a bad seed, she told us he's grown up in the care system (as many criminals do) and still lives in a hostel for the young homeless petty criminal a few streets away. I have to say now that I don't see this as a nimby problem - the hostel has been there at least five years longer than I have lived here, and as I said before, it's been a very peaceful and trouble-free area until about January this year.

I would have said February when I got broken into, but as Angela told us all this, the neighbour woman (an odd little creature - one of those people that makes you wonder whether their mother smoke & drank during pregnancy) said that her sons' mopeds (two sons, two mopeds) had been vandalised regularly since about Christmas.

By now, the sun was setting and it was getting darker. There was no sign of the police, so I rang again to check. They said they were extremely busy, and would try to come over, but couldn't say what time it would be. Knowing I would be at home the next day, I suggested they postpone until then, which they agreed to do.

So Andy & I set about fixing the door (again), this time nailing an even larger sheet of chipboard across the whole front of the door. This took us up to about 9.30, and it was dark by the time we'd finished. I felt much less guilty about Andy's help, since this time he was helping me to fix my door, rather than fixing my door for me. Even so, I decided that I owed him a beer, and we went to the pub, where I determined to buy all his beers all night. This was exactly what I was in the mood for, so we stayed until it closed at midnight. I arrived home lubricated, but not inebriated. I half hoped that I would catch them in the act, but nothing of the kind happened.

The next morning the police arrived just after 9am. They looked around with me, and then we settled down to write up my statement. The way this seems to work is - they ask lots of questions and write down a precis of my replies, then at the end, I read through what they've said and sign each page. On the last page, I sign immediately underneath the text so nothing can be added later without being obvious.

What complicated this, and slowed it down, was the CSI woman arriving partway through, so I had to stop the statement and show her where they had broken in, what had been touched, etc. This time, she got some decent prints, as the thieves had sorted through my DVD collection to decide which ones to take, rather than just grabbing handfuls. There was also a clear and full handprint on the inside of the front door. It was much smaller than mine - either a child's or a woman's.

CSI then left, and we finished the statement. I mentioned what my neighbours had said about seeing kids linked to the disturbances of Sunday night in the street that day, but they said they couldn't really do anything with this. Apparently, the kid that had been in custody had been the likliest suspect in the area; the kids that were with him they knew, but didn't think it would be them because, and I quote, "they didn't have the balls". Certainly not for breaking & entering in broad daylight close to the rush hour. I'm not sure I would, either.

Anyway, they said they didn't think the kids would have been involved, at least not directly, and it was probably another known burglar moving out of his or her usual patch.

I had already begun pulling together a full itemised list of stolen property, but hadn't finished it, so I could not give it to them there & then. They gave me a stamped addressed envelope to send it in, said they'd asked the Crime Prevention Officer to contact me and advise on home security, and they left. They spend about another half an hour knocking on doors and talking to my neighbours, then left altogether.

So I set to drawing up a list of stolen propety. This time, the replacement XBox had gone again, along with all its games - including the two or three new ones I'd bought myself since the last break-in. The BFR had gone. They'd gone upstairs to root around, and taken one of the two I keep under my bed for holiday luggage & such. They'd taken my DVD player, and (once I'd sorted through them all) about 70 DVDs. In bulk, and in value, they'd taken about twice as much this time. Clearly, they hadn't been disturbed on this occasion.

Next, I hit the phone and rang my insurers. I ended up speaking to the same woman as before at my contents insurers - she was all "oh no! Not AGAIN?". And this time, I read my buildings insurance form cover to cover, being determined to get the door fixed properly or, better still, completely replaced. As it turned out, I was an idiot. The £1,000 excess only applied in cases of subsidence - all other types of damage carried a £50 excess charge. DOH!

They said they could send someone out the next day to assess the damage and come up with a quoted price. After putting the phone down, the CPO phoned and we arranged for him to come the same day, so I wouldn't need to take yet another day off work. Then I phoned work to let them know what was going on and would it be okay to take another day, this time out of my holiday entitlement.

They disagreed - not with me taking the day off, but with using a day's annual leave to do it. They are good, aren't they (mind you for the pittance they are paying me they should be, but that's another rant)?

I'll finish this later.