The Break-In

‘There’s no-one around so let’s sit here on the swings and look at the plans. It’s all fun and games unless they catch you at it.’ Tim and Lawson plotted together in the empty children’s playground. It was 7pm on cold July night, and Tim shivered.

They had decided that they would start stealing bigger items. Until now they had limited their robberies to department stores.

‘I know the old bird has a big furry cat, and there’s a decent sized cat door in the back entrance. If we unscrewed it, you could easily climb through, unlock the back door, and we’re in.

She wears a lot of gold- bangles, rings and necklaces. It would be a great haul.’

‘I’m not sure if she would hear us.’

‘No, not at all. She’s deaf without her hearing aids, and she never wears them to bed. She has one of those duress alarms, but the silly old fool doesn’t wear that to bed either. When I looked through the window, I’ve seen them all on the dresser by the bed.’

‘That should only take half an hour, let’s do two places.’

‘Yes, her house is in the retirement village and I’ve sussed it out. There are another half a dozen potentials. Behind her place the old guy often leaves his windows open. They’ve only got old windscreen wire and tin snips will cut it off the frame.’

‘Does he have anything worth pinching?’

‘His TV and laptop are new, and they’re not too big; they’ll fit through the window easily. That might take another half hour. And let’s not be too greedy. We can do some other places next time. There's another retirement village down Wentworth Avenue and most old people are not vigilant enough. Unless they all get more careful after these break-ins.’

‘Have you got a good fence?’

‘Oh yes, Harry was in the nick until recently and he sells them for us. We don’t have to get involved at all. It will be a breeze. I've just done a lot of shop theft before. It's so easy, you just pretend you're returning something, or walk through the self-serve area like you own the place. They don't stop you, well, they've never stopped me, and I try not to do the same store twice, Just takes some planning and a lot of nerve.’

'Wow, you've never been stopped. You know the only thing I've stolen was a pair of shoes from KMart. I put them on in the fitting rooms, walked out through the door and showed them my empty bag, I nearly spoiled it by laughing,'

And it was just as they had planned. Poor Joan kept snoring the whole time that Tim and Lawson were in her bedroom, and they even screwed the cat door back in place afterwards.

'No-one will work that one out. And our gloves will prevent finger prints.'

Then they strolled down the side lane, checked they hadn't been seen, and proceeded to snip out the window wire from Walter's spare room.

'See I told you it would be easy.'

Lawson and Tim, crept slowly away and Walter just snuffled and rolled over without waking. Lawson carefully disconnected the TV and found the bag for the laptop. They had to be more careful now. The jewellery fitted easily in Lawsons back pack but the TV had to be carried under his arm.

Tim crept along the side lane and looked about in all directions, then checked out the street. Nobody in sight. They walked slowly and carefully to Tim's car, loaded up their booty and drove home.

They celebrated with a few beers in front of the new TV.

'I think we'll keep this one, it's so much better than ours.'

They laughed at the ease of the robberies, and planned next week's as well.

'I've been watching that big house by the park. There are three guys who live there, and two of them work FIFO, and the third one works nights at the casino. The house is usually empty, and those fellows know how to spend! Their surround sound system is A one, - I've heard it and felt the vibrations as I walked by. Their TV is bigger than Walter's, it will take both of us to carry it and we won't get it through the window. But they leave a spare front door key in the garden shed on a nail. We won't have any trouble. Just need to time it for after the FIFO workers fly out and a night the other one is working at the casino. Won't be hard.'

'Wow. how do you know all this stuff, Tim?'

'I just keep my eyes open.'

The break-in was easy. They unlocked the front door, and even had the temerity to park the car in the drive way. They chose midnight on Tuesday, and there was not a soul around.

Spurred on by their success, the boys tackled a fourth house the following week. Unfortunately for them, the neighbour across the road from Mrs James' house was awake watching cricket at 2 am, and saw two black figures creeping down her side passage. Tim and Lawson were confident that she had gone to spend a few nights with her daughter at Busselton, and she also kept a spare key hidden under a flower pot near the back door.

They didn't realise she had had motion-detector lights installed at the front door and down the side of the house.

What a surprise for the boys when they were caught in the lights, by the policemen the neighbour had called. That was the end of the burglaries and it wasn't difficult to build a good case against them.

Luckily for them, they were able to get a Legal Aid lawyer who made a strong case for leniency, as Tim and Lawson had no criminal history. Mrs James and Walter gave 'victim impact statements' and the judge gave them a suspended sentence with Community service.