A midwife at Queen's Medical Centre was left out of pocket after having her catalytic converter stolen. Tracey Squires, 58, of Mapperley, has been a midwife for more than 25 years and is now unable to make visits to her patients due to the theft.
Shortly after 2:30am on Thursday, June 2, the catalytic converter was stolen off Tracey's Honda. At the time, it was parked across the street from her home. She didn't realise anything was wrong until the morning when she went to start her car.
Tracey said: "I went to get in the car and there was an awful noise coming from the exhaust. I thought some was wrong with the exhaust, but the exhaust was intact, it was like when someone takes the silencer off a motorbike, it was like the car version of that."
After checking CCTV footage, Tracey and her husband Paul discovered that the "big money piece" had been stolen. She said: "Two lads came and within a few minutes they just sawed the catalytic converter off the bottom of the car."
You can see the shadows of the men walking up, you can see them looking around the car with a torch and then whatever they were cutting it with was making a light. We have two big dogs who bark at the landing of a fly normally, and neither of them were woken up by it" Tracey added.
It is going to cost Tracey £680 to have her car mended, but she is unsure how to stop it from happening again. She said: "I don't know how we can look after it really, as it's parked across the road and we don't have a driveway."
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Tracey lives within walking distance from Queen's Medical Centre and while she can walk to work, because of the theft she is unable to conduct visits to patients' homes. Inspector Karl Thomas, district commander for Nottinghamshire Police, said: “We understand the considerable impact these kinds of offences can have on victims who are, through no fault of their own, left without a car and out of pocket.
“Although offences of this type are thankfully rare, we have recently distributed advice leaflets in the wider St Ann’s and Sneinton areas after noticing a slight increase in theft offences from cars. Additional high visibility controls have also been put in place”
Nottinghamshire police are currently working to identify the person shown in the CCTV footage ad are asking anyone with information to come forward by calling 101.
