Ten reinforced steel girders were stolen from the Lashenden Air Warfare Musueum in Kent. They were supposed to form part of a new hanger to house a piloted version of the doodlebug. Nashreen Issa has the story.
The Bishop of Winchester has urged MPs to support a bill to force scrap metal merchants to be licensed. The Right Reverend Tim Dakin said metal thieves have targeted churches in his diocese more than 50 times since January 2011.
Large aluminium gates have been stolen by suspected metal thieves from a business premises in Banbury. Thames Valley Police are appealing for witnesses to come forward after workers discovered the gates were missing from the property on Southam Road.
British Transport Police say a crackdown on metal thefts has led to morethan 400 arrests. It is estimated twelve people died in the last twelve months trying tosteal metal from the railway. The South has been hard hit with repeated thefts, causing major disruption on busy railway lines.
Police investigating metal thefts in Kent, are appealing for help from the public.
37 aluminium plates, each weighing around 30kg and worth £1,000, were stolen overnight on Monday.
The 10ft square plates were used to help heavy goods vehicles drive into a field in Greenway Court Road, Hollingbourne.
Det Const Claire Davey said: “It’s likely that the people who took these plates would have needed to use a crane or hydraulic lifting equipment to move them, so this certainly wasn’t an opportunistic theft.
"I would appeal to anyone who saw any suspicious activity, or any companies who have been offered the plates for sale, to contact us with their information.”
Eight men have been sentenced to a total of 14 years and three months in prison after copper cabling worth more than £8,000 was stolen from an electricity substation in Oxford.
Police were called to the Grenoble Road substation in Blackbird Leys early on April 1. The men, all in their 20s, are from the West Midlands.
Thousands of pounds worth of damage has been caused to a church in Hampshire when theives stole 100ft of lead from the roof. Tiles were also broken at St Nicolas Church on Stoneham Lane in Eastleigh earlier this week which has led to water damage following heavy rain.
Police in Wiltshire are holding a day of action to crack down on metal thieves. The day of action is intended to target carriers of waste scrap metal and to investigate and deter metal theft in the force area. Power supplies and train services have been disrupted by thefts of equipment.