Police raid narrowboat

Police raided a narrowboat at Brentford yesterday (30th July) and found £5,000 worth of stolen property.

It was in the morning, Alan Tilbury relates, that police raided the boat moored on the Thames, and discovered stolen solar panels valued at around £5,000, and arrested the boater on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

Police found five stolen solar panels and a unique waterproof generator box which is needed to switch on the equipment, after being alerted by the Environment Agency about the loss of the panels, and so covertly kept a watch on the boats along the river.

Matt Loewenthal, Senior Environment Monitoring Officer for the Environment Agency explained:

"The solar panels that were stolen are absolutely vital to our work as they are our only source of power out on the Thames.

"We lost thousands of pounds of equipment, but even more important than the financial loss is the data that was lost and we can't get back. The equipment that was stolen powers our water quality monitoring equipment which provide us with crucial information about the health of the river."