Met seizes £80,000 of ‘stolen goods’ at car boot sale dubbed lawless by Jenrick

Police seized about £80,000 worth of suspected stolen power tools at a car boot sale previously dubbed a “parable of lawless Britain” by Robert Jenrick.

The shadow justice secretary attended the Hounslow car boot sale in November and said his visit followed a tip-off that “it had become a carnival of criminality”.

He claimed to have witnessed “thousands of tools being sold at rock-bottom prices”, the “police nowhere to be seen”, and sellers wearing balaclavas.

On December 11, the Metropolitan Police recovered 400 suspected stolen items – including power drills, nail guns, electric saws, and a concrete mixer – at Hounslow Heath car boot sale, west London.

Two 15-year-old boys and two men, aged 54 and 55, were arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods and bailed pending further inquiries, the force said.

Its “proactive operation” was carried out “in response to concerns about tool theft”, it added.

Footage showed officers removing a mass of power tools in a muddy field and placing them in police vans.

Officers are working to identify the tools and trace their original owners.

Describing his visit, Mr Jenrick said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, in November: “It was a parable of lawless Britain: Thousands of tools being sold at rock-bottom prices. The police nowhere to be seen.

“Many tools still had the names of tradesmen etched into them. Sellers wore balaclavas.

“Nobody could explain where they got their tools from or how they could sell them so cheaply and make a profit.

“You didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out they were selling stolen tools.

“When I put that charge to one particularly aggressive seller, he boasted he’d been doing this for 22 years, and that the police wouldn’t get him.”

Police advised power tool owners to mark and take photographs of their property, and record the items’ serial numbers, to increase the chance of returning them if stolen.

Superintendent James Rawlinson, from Hounslow’s local neighbourhood policing team, said: “We are listening to Londoners’ concerns about tool theft because we understand the significant impact it has on tradespeople and their livelihoods.”

Tool theft was down 20.3% between April and December compared with the same period last year as a result of Met operations targeting tool thieves, the force said.

It added that this year officers seized more than £500,000 worth of stolen tools and made multiple arrests during operations at two “large-scale boot sales” and their associated premises in Romford and Rainham, east London, this year.

Superintendent Rawlinson added: “We are targeting the prolific offenders and organised criminal groups that drive this trade in stolen tools through proactive, intelligence-led operations.

“We are also ramping up our efforts around prevention, carrying out regular tool-marking events across London to make it harder for criminals to sell stolen goods.”