London Photographer Has All His Gear Stolen, Police Do Nothing

A press photographer from London had all of his gear stolen last week and says British police did nothing despite getting the exact location of the cameras and a picture of the thief.

Richard Pohle has been a staff photographer at The Times of London newspaper for more than 25 years and was in Leicester Square on Tuesday evening (September 3) covering the premiere of Lee starring Kate Winslet.

During his assignment, the news photographer’s bag containing all of his camera equipment and laptop vanished. Pohle checked the Find My app on his iPhone to locate his AirPods which were also in the bag and he watched it cross the River Thames to an address in South London.

Writing in The Times of London, Pohle says he strongly considered chasing after the thief but instead went to Charing Cross police station to report the crime.

“I showed the civilian worker the suspect’s photo and the live location of my laptop,” Pohle writes. “She dismissed my plea for immediate action, citing a lack of resources, and handed me a crime report form.”

The reason Pohle had a photo of the accused is because a colleague had taken a photo for social media minutes before the theft and had unknowingly captured the man staring at a camera bag.

https://t.co/w1Rz0wDqg2 This week I had my camera bag stolen on assignment. I had a picture of the suspect and tracked him via the "find my" app across London to an address in South London. The police weren't interested so I wrote a piece for The Times #thetimes #crime

— Richard Pohle (@PohleRichard) September 7, 2024

The Times of London, founded in 1785, is the U.K.’s oldest newspaper and is considered to be the country’s “paper of record.” Pohle mentioned what had happened to one of his reporter colleagues who inquired about the incident to the Metropolitan Police; the law enforcement for Greater London.

“Before long I received a call from a detective chief inspector and they pulled CCTV from Leicester Square showing the man reaching for my bag,” Pohle writes in the newspaper while expressing doubt that everyday folk get the same treatment.

The Metropolitan Police says it has issued an arrest warrant for the man and visited the address the bag was tracked to but nobody was home.

“Device tracking can often be helpful for officers when tracking down stolen items,” the Metropolitan Police says in a statement to The Times of London. “However, the technology does have limitations and is not always accurate. The pinging of a device to a location on its own does not give officers the powers to enter an address for an offence of this level.”

Last month, PetaPixel reported on an American photographer traveling in Demark who used his AirTags to track down his camera bag with $25,000 worth of equipment inside and successfully retrieved it from the men who had stolen it.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.