Stolen military gear ‘enough for coup’

Vast array of hardware stolen includes £50,000 worth of night-vision goggles and even an aircraft fuselage Thieves stole enough military equipment from Britain’s armed forces last year to “launch a small coup”, according to an MP. The vast array of hardware included expensive kit needed by troops in the field: almost £50,000 worth of night-vision goggles, as well as pistols, boots, body armour and ration packs. A silver statue worth £25,000 was taken from the Household Cavalry barracks in Knightsbridge, and more than £7,000 of silver cutlery from the Redford barracks in Edinburgh. Compensation cheques totalling £85,000 also disappeared. Thieves somehow made off with pieces of machinery that would have been hard to move without anyone noticing, among them an aircraft fuselage, a Bedford truck, an industrial washing machine, an inflatable boat, an outboard motor and a £50,000 helicopter rotor tuner. Police estimate almost £700,000 worth of equipment was reported stolen from MoD buildings and bases during 2010, but said the level of theft had gone down in recent years. The (.doc file) was put on the House of Commons website after the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavetree, Luciana Berger, submitted a question on the issue. Berger asked for details of equipment stolen from the armed services worth more than £100 and said she was astonished when the inventory was given to her. “There’s enough military equipment to launch a small coup. The list went on and on, and the one I asked for was restricted to those items worth more than £100, so it is likely that many other things were stolen. “This list doesn’t include military bases abroad either. I will be laying down another question about that.” Berger said she had been in touch with service personnel who had told her security at some military bases was poor. They had also raised concern about the lack of patrols by MoD police, a force of 3,500 officers that is responsible for security at MoD bases. The papers name the bases from which material has been taken. Most of the night-vision goggles were taken from HMS Ocean in June last year; a television disappeared from the same ship. Military clothing worth £30,000 was taken from the Assaye barracks in Tidworth, Hampshire, home of the 1st Regiment of the Royal Artillery. The aircraft fuselage went missing from RAF Kinloss in May last year. One defence source said: “How someone managed to walk away with that, God alone knows.” The junior defence minister Andrew Robatham insisted all allegations of theft of military equipment were carefully examined. “The necessary resources, including the Ministry of Defence police, are allocated to investigate the loss, and wherever possible recover the equipment,” he said. “The Ministry of Defence has recently set up a defence crime board to provide strategic direction and initiatives aimed at combating the harm done to defence by crime.” He said the MoD compensation cheques that had gone missing had not been successfully cashed. “The cheques were for £60,000, £16,500 and £8,000. I can confirm that neither the intended recipients nor the MoD have suffered a financial loss as a consequence.” An MoD police spokesman said arrests had been made in some of the cases last year. “It is fair to say that we get a full range of people involved in this. Service personnel, civil servants, outsiders and civilian contractors working in MoD buildings.” In a statement, the force said the military community included “many hundreds of thousands of people”. “Although a certain level of theft is therefore to be expected, it is far less than for a similar-sized population in a UK town,” it said. “The MoD police ensures that all crime reported to it is fully investigated and over the last three years the level of theft it deals with has fallen by almost 20%.” Military Defence policy Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 10, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.