Man, 23, fined £90 for criminal damage after attacking a cardboard POLICEMAN in petrol station forecourt



Cardboard cut-out was 'kicked to pieces' at Tesco store in Pitsea, Essex



Incident caught on CCTV and man was traced through his numberplate



Two-dimensional officers cost £100 and police claim they deter shoplifters

Essex trial of the cut-outs was scrapped in 2010 but they were reintroduced



A man who dragged a cardboard cut-out of a policeman onto a petrol station forecourt and kicked it to pieces in full view of CCTV has been fined £90.

Police tracked down the 23-year-old after the bizarre attack at a Tesco petrol station in Pitsea, Essex, where the two-dimensional officer was supposedly being used to deter shoplifters.

They used his car numberplate to trace him to his home in nearby Basildon and issued him with the fine for criminal damage.



Lifelike: A 23-year-old man has been fined for kicking a cardboard policeman similar to the one pictured

Crime fighters: The £100 cut-outs were introduced in a trial by Essex police in 2009 and scrapped the next year. Some have since been reintroduced. Pictured left: PCSOs Helen Calver and Sgt Steve Scott (file photo)



Police viewed footage of the incident, which happened in broad daylight on March 1, and attended the man's home on Tuesday last week where he admitted the attack.

Sgt Simon Gray, from the Basildon Retail Crime Unit, said: 'This man obviously thought it would be funny to take this cut-out to the forecourt and kick it to pieces.

CARDBOARD ARMS OF THE LAW

Essex Police spent £760 on eight so-called 'cardboard cops' for a trial in 2009, where they were put at petrol stations to deter fuel thieves. The trial was abandoned a year later after the force admitted they were not having the desired effect - and some were being stolen. Amid headlines the force removed the effigies from forecourts, shops and supermarkets.

But the two-dimensional crime fighters were recently reintroduced at supermarkets and petrol stations around Basildon, paid for jointly by Basildon Council and Essex Police.

The destroyed cardboard policeman has not yet been replaced at the Tesco petrol station. It is not the first bizarre crime at the Pitsea branch of Tesco. Last August, a brazen thief stole a Thomas the Tank Engine children's ride from outside the shop in broad daylight.

'Whatever he may have thought, this cutout was there for a reason.

'We did manage to track down this man using CCTV and he was dealt with by way of a £90 fine.'

Essex Police would not name the man because he was not charged with a criminal offence.

Fixed penalty notices are used to punish low-level crime to avoid giving an offender a criminal record.



For criminal damage cases, a fixed penalty notice can be given at an officer's discretion if the value of the damage was less than £300 and the victim knows they will not receive compensation.

Essex Police introduced the cardboard crime fighters in a 2009 trial supposedly to deter shoplifters.

But some of the £100 life-size cut-outs became victims of crime themselves, being stolen by pranksters, youths or criminals.

The official trial was scrapped in 2010 with police in Essex admitting the cardboard figures failed to reduce crime.

But new cut-outs were funded recently by the local Retail Crime Unit, which works in partnership with the council.

They have been used in several areas including Berkshire, Hull and Gwent, where the Welsh force alone spent £13,260 in two years on 52 cutouts costing £255 each.



Sgt Gray added: 'These cardboard cut-outs have received some bad press in the past.

'We do not use them to replace officers, instead they are a tool that we use to deter shoplifters.

'We have seen a reduction in shoplifting offences at the stores where these cut outs are located.'

Crime scene: The attack was caught on CCTV at this Tesco petrol station in Pitsea, Essex