Hi guys,
Many thanks for all the responses, much appreciated. Sorry I've been slow to respond, turned out I had plenty to keep me busy over the weekend...
Yes its incredibly frustrating, but as someone said, I'm lucky to still have the car, and the damage is repairable, which is something to be thankful for at least. The annoying thing was it happened in the space of two or three minutes. The customer's daughter had been out just before us, had seen the car (window and locks intact), came in and asked me did I own it - "Who owns the Bat Mobile?"
), was asking about it in general. I finished up work, and the customer and I walked out to the car, to find the lock done, window smashed, and the culprits, all aged about 13-16, congregated on a nearby street corner, smirking and smugly looking down while drinking their cider and cheap lager.
I was initially fit to be tied, and watched them all lift their drink and prepare to scarper as I began making a bee-line towards them, enraged, before being (probably wisely), stopped and held back by the customer and his wife, who said 'Its not worth it'..... and they're right because I would have likely infringed the little darling's human rights when I choked them to death or something.
So instead I phoned the cops, who, to be fair to them, came out within about 20 minutes. As they arrived, the hoods started to make a swift exit, but were promptly nabbed and had their alcohol removed. They were then questioned about the damage to the car. Unfortunately though in the end the police man had to tell me that though he knew fine-rightly that one of them had been responsible due to their responses etc, that he had no right to detain or search them, because of their age and the fact no one else had come forward saying they'd seen anything. I said this was a ridiculous state of affairs where the criminal has more rights than I do, but appreciated that it wasn't his fault.
He then said that they could offer CSI if the scumbags had actually been inside the car, but there was no evidence of that, though they could give it a go anyway if I wanted, but would need the car for 2-3 days. I declined this as unfortunately I can't afford to be without it for that long at the moment, and the likelihood of them catching, and then subsequently being able to do one of these oxygen thieves, is negligible, so the resources, and taxpayer's money, are probably best kept for more serious cases.
The end result was that I had to report it to the insurance. Robert and I were going to attempt to remove the glass from a spare estate he has (many thanks to everyone for all the advice about how and where its bonded), but they got back to me on Saturday and agreed to repair it if I pay the excess, so will give this a go. Only thing is they're a bit slow at finding a local supplier over here, so at the moment I'm having to be very careful where I park it, as its only sealed up with plastic. If its going to be a longer period of time, I may well have to borrow Robert's spare door...
John, I'll probably take you up on the very kind offer of re-tumbling the lock. I don't tend to use them often, but would rather its back as it should be, and secure.
Colin, Matthew, XMX, Andrew, Mike, Dave, and David, I'm equally sickened by the damage to your cars, which we all may have expressed at the time in the relevant threads. I'd like to say that this kind of thing is a surprise these days, but sadly we all know it isn't, and I've probably been lucky to have escaped all these years until now. Its the mindlessness of such behaviour that’s the killer, as Mike said, if they actually had something to gain from it you might not agree with it, but could understand why it happened... but when there's no 'benefit' to them but the destruction of your pride and joy, its so hard to stomach.
In answer to Jan's comment about alarms etc. Yes, sadly where I live, and I suspect many here are in the same boat, I feel it a necessity to have an alarm on all my cars, and any I buy without, I always fit a 3rd party one. This XM is no exception, and actually has a system with a remote pager, which would have alerted me had the alarm gone off. The only reason it didn't was they weren't able to actually get the door open. Though after this I think I'll be purchasing the optional 'Glass break' module for it. The gutting thing is I was sat in the customer's garage / office a mere 10 meters away from the car, and would have stood a fair chance of catching them if they'd managed to get the door open and triggered the system.
Some people have questioned the point of me installing alarms, "Why are you bothering, its a 20 year old Citroen who’s going to steal it?" etc etc. But the way I see it is these scumbags will prey on anything they feel like, so why make it easy for them? I also have a heavy duty steering wheel Stoplock costing almost £100 in each of my cars, because again, why give them an easy ride? I'm finding now, locally at least, that with newer cars becoming almost impossible to steal without the keys, that the scum are increasingly targeting older ones, and are indiscriminate, anything with four wheels which will get them a few hours of 'fun', will do....
The thing that really made my blood boil afterwards, is that though there was nothing of value in the car, nothing was taken, but the things showered with most of the glass were my daughter's child seat (which had huge chunks embedded
inside the seat cushions somehow), her favourite cuddly toy, and a bag of clothes my parents had bought her for Easter, all of which are ruined. What's the bloody point
in here!
