Criminal gangs strike at almost half of churches in rural Britain
This might seem a bit of a laugh until it happens to you. In many rural settings the Church, irrespective of your personal religious inclination, is the only community building. The people who prey on these buildings are doing a gross disservice to the whole community. I think like fly-tippers this particular breed of opportunistic criminals who have no respect for our rural milieu deserve firm sanctions. Put to a rural community service programme they could be forced to do the jobs we all find difficult to resource including amenity grass cutting and playground maintenance. Instead of a few hours however if they were given 25 years, working from 10 until 10 every Saturday, they may over time come to love the places they so casually desecrate.
Almost half of listed churches have been targeted by criminals, new figures show, as police warn of professional gangs using the latest technology find easy targets and map out escape routes.
The epidemic of crime is dominated by metal thefts with entire roofs being removed from historic places of worship.
The crisis threatening the heritage of rural Britain is now so great that the heritage body Historic England estimates 40 per cent of listed churches have been targeted.
Evidence points to the thefts being highly organised by criminals who use modern technology, including drones, Google Earth and sat nav to first spot their targets through aerial footage and then plot their routes.