Whilst the story below won't make up for the loss of the car and the mental pain you might be feeling, thought this might cheer a few up (just to know that sometimes they do get their just rewards).
I live in a cul-de-sac (the the very end), and near the entrance a few houses down on the left is a neighbour who's not been here too long and has a really rather nice BMW M3 (a 2013 model). Anyway, about 4 months ago, he was woken by the sounds of rummaging coming from downstairs. He went down and saw two lads emptying all the downstairs drawers out looking for his keys. There were masked and armed with baseball bats. One of them saw him and immediately confronted him yelling at him to get down and to give them the 'effing keys.
What they didn't realise is that this particular house owner was not only a copper, but an ARV (armed response) copper, and a previous (to joining the police) a British Para. Needless to say within a few seconds the assailant was on the deck with his arm twisted back up and screaming in pain. His mate then decided to have a go, which is when he found out that my neighbour had 3 of his ARV mates staying, (they were going to a firearms course early the next morning together, so were staying locally in one house). All 3 came downstairs to see what was going on. The second lad on seeing this tried to leg it but was chased down before he could get over the garden wall, and dragged to the floor. The other two coppers made their way outside and surprised the driver of the "getaway" vehicle waiting outside and they grabbed him out of the car before he could start the engine.
With all 3 restrained, my neighbour must have called his buddies as within 5-10 minutes, there were blue lights all over the close as uniformed officers turned up in 3 patrol vehicles. All 3 men were arrested and ultimately sent down for between 3 and 6 years. It came to light they were a gang from Liverpool responsible it seems for a raft of thefts of high performance vehicles in the proceeding 6 months or so, and had beaten up two people in the course (one of which needed serious hospital treatment).
Needless to say, I thing those lowlife scroats didn't expect what they got, and will perhaps think twice in future of having another go (especially now they are all known to the police).
