A teenage boy allegedly dressed up as a delivery driver to steal parcels from people’s houses in Rotherhithe in yet another example of “brazen” theft in the area, an eyewitness has said.
The man said that the young man was caught on his CCTV camera on Plover Way walking behind a real delivery driver, knocking on people’s doors, and telling them there had been a mistake. He would then leave with the parcels that had just been delivered. The teenager was allegedly being helped by an accomplice in a black hatchback car.
The real driver, who works for DPD, eventually got wind of what was going on and chased the boys off, according to Aviv Screwvala, who lives on the street near Norway Dock – and who has handed over his surveillance footage to police.
“I saw a DPD driver… who was yelling at and chasing a young teenager wearing a blue DPD jacket,” Mr Screwvala told the News.
“He was an imposter going up to people’s houses where the actual guy was making deliveries.”
“Now, the average person would say ‘why would someone do that?’ But I guess some people quite understandably just go with what they’re told.”
A spokesperson for the police said: “We received a report on September 17 about 09.00hrs that two men pretending to be delivery drivers knocked on a door in Plover Way and demanded a parcel to be returned.
“They were challenged by an actual delivery driver and fled empty-handed.”
Unfortunately no arrests have been made despite Mr Screwvala’s CCTV footage. The incident came a few weeks before another attempted phone snatching in the area around Canada Water tube station last Friday – where members of the public grabbed the would-be thief and held him until the police arrived to arrest him.
Mr Screwvala expressed his dismay at the long list of thefts in the area and called for local authorities to do more to tackle the problem. He said he had encouraged people living in the area to install doorbell cameras to record footage of thieves.
“Everything we can do as residents we have done… Just two unmarked police cars in the area would solve this issue,” he said. “Residents’ frustration levels have reached a high level.”
“We moved here two years ago. We used to live in Shad Thames, which also experiences some theft – but the frequency and brazen nature of the stuff that you get in Rotherhithe is terrible.”
He cited two recent alleged examples of theft – one just this week, when some people tried to break into a neighbour’s car. “Fortunately the owner started yelling,” Mr Screwvala said.
And about five weeks ago, an electrician working for Mr Screwvala had his van broken into and his laptop stolen on the same street, he said.
Other recent examples reported on by the News include an eight-month pregnant woman whose phone was snatched from her hand by two people on a moped on Surrey Quays Road Canada Water tube station, and a man who chased off thieves who were trying to drill into his van in broad daylight on Rotherhithe Street.
A spokesperson for DPD said: “We can confirm that a DPD driver confronted a suspected bogus delivery driver and recovered a parcel. He was also able to provide registration details and images of the suspects, who fled. These have been forwarded to the police.”