Businesses are common targets for walk in thieves.  In so many businesses it is all to easy to walk straight in off the street and into offices.  Where there are a number of people working, there will be a number of handbags, mobile phones, wallets and maybe laptops.

Reported cases show that Nursing and Residential Homes are particularly vulnerable targets for this type of offence.

Crime Reduction Officers highlight the fact that access and entry points should be restricted.  We would advise all businesses to take steps to make sure their premises are not easily accessible to thieves.
 
In particular, rear doors should be secured, and in fact any entrances that are out of sight of the occupants should also be properly closed and locked.

Another way of reducing the number of unauthorised persons is to ensure that businesses have clearly defined public areas separated from private or staff only areas.  If these areas are clearly signed staff only, your staff can confidently challenge any strangers that are found in these areas.

Staff should be reminded that all handbags and personal belongings should preferably be kept in secure areas, such as lockers, or at the very least, should all be out of the sight of any opportunist thief that gains entry to the property.  

It is also recommended that businesses do not keep excessive amounts of cash on the premises, even if this means the inconvenience of banking takings more than once a day.  

Any suspicious activity or any suspicious characters should be reported to the police – descriptions and accurate details are vital.

The number of mobile phones, wallets and bags stolen from places such as offices (in or on desks), bags/briefcases, vehicles, changing rooms and lockers is tremendous.  Virtually all of these victims tend to be adults. 

If you have a desk with lockable drawers, use it!  Make you sure you place your bag and any other valuable items in desks or filing cabinets and LOCK THEM  

Don't keep large sums of money with you and keep your cheque book and cards separate at all times
Challenge any strangers in your building, be it an office or school

Mobile Technology in particular is vulnerable to being stolen.  Mobile phone theft has been big business for a number of years now. A good number of these thefts are as a result of phones being left unattended, on desks, in cars or in bags/briefcases, left out and unsecured.

We strongly advise that everyone make a note of the phone's IMEI number (International Mobile Equipment Indicator). To access this, enter *#06#. If your phone should get stolen, inform your Service Provider immediately and give them this number so that they can disconnect your handset. 

There is now a national register of these numbers, shared by all service providers in the UK.  In order to be of any use to the thief, your phone will have to be taken abroad to be re-used on a foreign network.

Even if a handset is re-chipped in the UK, having taken this action, you have rendered that handset useless.  It is also now also a criminal offence for anyone to offer reprogramming services without the authority of the holding phone company.