A young Darlington man was badly burnt this week in what is thought to be attempted theft of copper electrical wire although as his father points out nobody knows for sure why he was there and the moment he isn’t well enough to tell anyone what happened. but there has been an alarming increase in these types of theft due to the rising price of scrap copper.
There have been cases of cable and metal being taken from railways and even a case where a hacksaw and blow torch was found half way through the main power line to a town. As well as the obvious dangers to the thiefs own health, they is the very real danger to the public.
A lot of more ethical scrap yards have been refusing to buy copper from all but trusted sources, but there are still those yards out there that would quite happily buy from anywhere.
In some US States this crime has led to proper licencing of metal brokers so names have to be taken and proof of ID, so does this mean the UK should be looking at tighter controls?
Is it possible to have tighter controls and would it make a difference?
[...] someone who is very aware that the theft of metal is a big boom industry at the moment I picked up on this story in the Yorkshire Post Click Here to [...]