Free The Criminal Alphabet by Noel "Razor" Smith Page B

caused to any person; (c) owing to
     the driving of the vehicle, an accident occurred by which damage was caused to any
     property, other than the vehicle; and (d) damage was caused to the vehicle. A person
     guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on conviction under
     indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or … if it is
     proved that the accident caused the death of the person concerned, fourteen
     years.’
    Aggravated vehicle taking is what you will be charged with if you use threats or actual
     violence while stealing a vehicle. The American term is ‘carjacking’, sometimes
     shortened to ‘jacking’, which is creeping into British usage, mainly through
     youngsters who have been exposed to an almost constant diet of American films and TV
     shows.
DRAGGERS
----
    A dragger is a
     professional car thief. The Romany word ‘drag’ dates from the days of horse-drawn
     vehicles, when the horse would drag the vehicle behind it. Hence, a place where cars
     race is known as a ‘drag strip’ and a main road as the ‘main drag’. Draggers steal
     vehicles for a variety of reasons. Low down on the car-theft totem pole is the
     joyrider – kids and amateurs who steal cars for the pure pleasure of driving, and
     sometimes in order to annoy the police and entice them to chase the stolen car.
     These people are not really criminals in the professional sense of the word, more
     thrill seekers and car enthusiasts who cannot afford or are too young to buy their
     own cars. In the old days, when car security was not really up to much, the perfect
     way for a dragger to go equipped was with a set of twirls –
     double-edged FS car keys that would fit almost any motor. You could normally get
     these from a friendly, or bent, garage or a breakers’ yard. It was simply a matter
     of going through your keys until you found one that would fit the door. This would
     inevitably fit the ignition, too. Any car was fairly easy to steal, but the
     sure-fire winners with a set of twirls were Fords and Austins. Motorbikes were also
     pretty easy to steal, though more often than not the potential thief needed to do a
     bit of hot-wiring in order to start the ignition. The professional
     dragger will steal cars to order, sometimes for armed robbery teams. Professional
     draggers also make good money by stealing a vehicle, stripping down all the
     removable parts and selling them on.
    See Boys
, Hot-wiring
, Twirls
RAM-RAIDING
----
    Some say that the crime of ram-raiding originated in the north of England, around
     Tyneside, in the 1990s, but it hasactually been around since the
     1930s and is prevalent all over the world. The first use of this term to describe it
     was, however, in Belfast in the late 1970s. The crime involves using a vehicle as a
     battering ram to smash into shops in order to steal goods. Most ram-raiders are
     opportunistic thieves who plan no further than driving a stolen car through the
     window of their local supermarket in order to steal cigarettes and alcohol, but
     there are also professional thieves who take ram-raiding very seriously and make it
     a very lucrative form of crime. Professional ram-raiders target high-end shops that
     sell designer items and jewellery. The ‘ram car’, usually a heavy SUV, is driven at
     speed through the front of the target premises, smashing a way in so that the
     thieves can jump out and grab the loot. The perpetrators then transfer the stolen
     goods to a couple of ‘clean’ vehicles parked outside and make their getaway, leaving
     the ram car blocking access to the premises. Speed and surprise are the main
     elements in this crime, and the typical professional ram raid will take no more than
     three or four minutes. Alarms are no deterrent. The only way to combat ram-raiders
     is by placing bollards or concrete blocks in front of your premises so that raiders
     cannot get their vehicle close enough to it. Whereas the amateur ram-raider