Counting the cost of Shropshire lead thefts
When a volunteer went to open up St Bartholomew's Church at Tong in June this year, he was greeted with a depressingly familiar sight. The picturesque church near Shifnal, which attracts visitors from all over the world, had been targeted for the sixth time in five years by lead thieves.
"It's quite disheartening," says churchwarden Mick Pilsbury.
"We had spent a fortune on security, and then this happens.
"When they steal it off you it's bad enough, but when they steal it off a church it is heartbreaking, because that is just a charity."
St Bartholomew's, which is best-known as the final resting place of "Little Nell" in Charles Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop, is not alone. Just a month earlier, two churches in the Newport area were also hit.
While the main roof of St Peter's Church in Edgmond had been replaced with stainless steel during the 1960s, it did not stop the thieves targeting the lead flashing. And a few weeks before that, lead flashing was also taken from Trinity Church in Newport.
The crimes mark a disturbing return of a crime which appeared to have been on the wane, following the introduction of new legislation and a fall in metal prices.
Metal thefts from churches reached their peak in 2010/2011, but fell in the years that followed. The Government set up the National Metal Task Force to co-ordinate policing, and also passed the Scrap Metal Dealers Act which required dealers to hold a licence. Cash payments for scrap metal have been banned since December 2012 in order to make it harder for thieves to sell on the metal.
However, it now appears they may be on the rise again, with 200 across Britain to be targeted this summer.
And many of these churches will face the daunting task of raising thousands of pounds due to limits imposed on their insurance cover.
When £20,000 worth of lead was taken from the north aisle of All Saints' Church in Claverley in 2012, the insurance cover was limited to £5,000, leaving the church to find £15,000.
Churches have also gone to great lengths to step up security. The 900-year-old St Andrew's Church in Shifnal invested in SmartWater technology after being targeted three times in two months back in 2007. SmartWater leaves a permanent code on surfaces it is applied to, which can be traced back to its owner if placed under ultra-violet light.
However, as churches step up security, it seems the thieves are using ever more sophisticated methods to commit their crimes. In some cases, drones have even been used to carry out reconnaissance operations.
At St Bartholomew's, the thieves managed to disable the CCTV cameras which were installed at the church, although they still managed to capture some footage of the offenders.
The Rev Pippa Thorneycroft says: "We think they took as much as they could, but couldn't fit everything in the van as some of it was still by the door. I believe there have been a few similar thefts on the A41 near our church, but it seemed to be quiet for a while.
"We have great CCTV and we have images of the thieves, so we hope to catch them soon. However four of the CCTV cameras had their wires cut, so these people knew exactly what they were doing."
Part of the problem facing many churches is that many of them have listed building status, which makes it difficult for alternative materials to be used.
"Previously we have asked English Heritage to allow us to use a different type of material on the roof, as this has happened before," says Mrs Thorneycroft.
"But they said because it is a Grade I-listed building it has to be lead."
An investigation by the Shropshire Star earlier this year revealed that churches in Shropshire and Mid Wales had been attacked by thieves almost 300 times in the last five years.
Britain's most prolific church lead thieves were jailed for a total of more than 20 years in 2012, after they left the Church of England with a £1 million repair bill.
The gang made nearly £70,000 from selling the stolen metal over a nine-month period in 2011, but repairing the damage to the sacred buildings will cost more than 14 times that amount.
It is by no means a crime confined to Shropshire. In the past seven weeks, no fewer than nine churches in Suffok were targeted by thieves, leading to county MP and Paymaster General Matt Hancock calling for the Government to set up a fund for churches whose roofs have been stolen.
"Without adequate funding to repair their roofs, it is likely that these historic places of worship will deteriorate further, which would be a real loss," he says.
Tony Baldry, chairman of the National Church Buildings Council, says: "What we are now seeing is commercial gangs starting to steal lead as an organised business.
"This is clearly a very worrying and unwelcome development."
Angus Brown, a director of church security firm E-Bound, believes the recent rise is the result of organised gangs targeting churches.
"The changes in the law resulted in opportunistic thieves going elsewhere," he says.
"Recently, the churches have been carefully chosen.
"Well organised, disciplined teams of people have come in working fast and removed large amounts of lead and copper before disappearing."
He says it is not clear where the metal is being sold, but believed it was evident that loopholes in the Scrap Metal Dealers Act were being exploited.
A spokesman for Ecclesiastical Insurance, which provides cover for most Anglican churches, said: "We are disturbed to see lead theft on the rise."
