Risking death to beat the cost of living - the true scale of meter tampering

Correspondent Gregg Easteal investigates the rising number of people tampering energy meters - but at what cost?

Fiddling a gas or electric meter to cut bills is not a new habit. But it is a potentially lethal one.

The sheer scale of people tampering with their meters across the country has become clear during an ITV News Tyne Tees investigation, with figures showing a 340% rise in reported cases of energy theft in the past ten years.

Watch Meter Cheating: Dying to beat the cost of living?

This investigation began after a house fire in North Shields which killed 18-year-old Leah Casson in January 2023.

A friend of Leah's family, Calvin Smith, admitted he had bypassed the electricity supply at the house and walked free from court on Thursday (22 October) with a 16-week suspended sentence.

The court heard Smith advertised meter tampering on Facebook to "beat the cost of living".

A court hearing was told the tampered meter was a suspected cause of the fire but experts could not rule out other suspected possible causes of the fire - including arson - as being less likely.

Initially Smith was charged with Leah's manslaughter, along with her mother, 43-year-old Danielle Johnson, who also admitted to electricity abstraction over a period several months before the fire.

Those manslaughter charges were dropped just as a trial was about to begin. Johnson was given a conditional discharge for abstracting electricity.

A quarter of a million cases of energy theft go unreported each year, which is the equivalent to one in every 150 houses, according to Stay Energy Safe. The charity is a branch of Crimestoppers set up to raise awareness of the dangers of meter tampering.

ITV Tyne Tees spoke to numerous people as part of an investigation into this issue. Some said they could understand why people resort to doing it in desperate times, but every person interviewed agreed that it is not worth risking a life for.

Danielle Jones knows this all too well. Her son Harvey Tyrrell died aged just seven. He was playing in a pub garden where, unknowing to his family, the landlord had tampered the gas, water and electric meter.

Harvey touched a faulty light and was electrocuted.

"One minute you're out having a meal, the next minute you're being told your only child is dead," Danielle told ITV Tyne Tees in her first television interview.

Danielle is now calling for all commercial properties to have a mandatory meter inspection every year to ensure their gas and electrics are compliant and safe.

Harvey is not alone in being killed as collateral damage to energy theft. There are others, including Sandu Laurentiu whose boss was jailed for manslaughter after he was electrocuted while taking a shower.

"You could offer me a million pounds - I'd rather have Harvey back here," Danielle said.

"So when you look at the bigger picture, no amount of money is worth risking yourself, your family, just by bypassing gas, water, electricity."

Harvey Tyrrell's mum Danielle Jones is urging people not to tamper with meters after her son was electrocuted due to deliberately dodgy wiring

What are the figures?

The energy price cap rose by 54% in 2022. That is the limit set by the energy regulator Ofgem on the maximum unit rates and daily standing charges that suppliers can charge for default or standard variable tariff.

It does not cap how much anyone pays for energy - just how much that energy can cost.

Stay Energy Safe, which allows people to report energy theft to them completely anonymously, has seen a 340% increase in the number of reports to their service in the past decade.

"It's huge and it's on the up," Annette Boosyen, from the charity, told ITV Tyne Tees. "I don't think people realise just how dangerous tampering with your meter can be."

Annette said she sees energy theft reported for all manner of reasons: some bypass the meter to heat outdoor pools and hot tubs, some to run cannabis farms.

But, increasingly, it seems more people are tampering meters to save on household bills.

"Anyone that is in or around a tampered meter is in danger," Annette said. "Energy theft, meter tampering, can cause sparking, it can cause electric shocks, it can cause gas and carbon monoxide leaks.

"In worst case scenarios it can cause fire and explosions which can cause injury and even in some cases, death."

The problem is country-wide, and is growing.

Figures prepared for ITV News Tyne Tees by Stay Energy Safe show the North East firmly as one of the country’s hotspots for meter tampering

Cleveland is the worst postcode in our region for meter tampering, with almost 500 confirmed cases from April last year to March of this year.

Newcastle upon Tyne is another regional hotspot, with 361 confirmed cases in the same time period.

Figures from Shared Data Unit also show that the Durham Constabulary force area has seen one of the highest increases in cases of energy theft, and is in the top five police forces for the highest rate of the offence per 100,000 people. 

The Durham force has seen a 185% increase in the 10 years from 2012-13 to 2022-23.

The other top five forces for percentage increases are the West Midlands (614%), Leicestershire (563%), Warwickshire (311%) and Northamptonshire (233%).

This potentially lethal practice is widespread and it is becoming more and more common.

There is help out there for those struggling to pay their bills - energy providers have a legal obligation to help customers in this situation. They can offer payment breaks and affordable debt repayment plans.

Citizens Advice can also offer help to those struggling, and point people in the direction of grants and charitable funds which can help people in need.

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