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mgmark
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« on: June 18, 2007, 02:06:03 pm » |
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Hi all.
As mentioned on another thread, back safe and sound now from another great week, having taken three of my lads out Le Mans (two of them for the first time), me in my MGA and them in the eldest's rep mobile. Right up to the point that someone robbed them of their cash and passports, at around 4am on Sunday morning on Bleu Nord. The result was total dejection, packing up the campsite early, and heading off to report the theft and get the necessary report for immigration control to get them back into UK. Bleu Nord had seemed a really good site - well drained, happy and friendly, and well patrolled at all times of the day and night (although perhaps not on race night...)
Campsite thefts do happen, but because the lads had taken what we all thought were very sensible precautions to prevent it, I want to warn others of the circumstances so that we can all be aware for the future. Setting the scene, we were in Bleu Nord as a group of 19 adults and 4 teenagers were housed in 6 small tents, 4 medium sized tents, one camper van, 10 cars and a couple of gazebos, with a fire lane running down the middle. A pretty typical layout.
My eldest lad's car provided a secure home for their passports, and their pooled cash to pay for useful stuff like beer, food, fuel and tolls. In addition, he kept his rucksack in it containing his own wallet, cash, radio etc. Everything worked like clockwork until on the Saturday night, everyone had been out and about to various points around the circuit (as you do) and had returned and turned in for the night by about 3am. All sober, given the excesses of Thurday and Friday nights and the desire to enjoy the race and not to be hungover for the journey back home. At 3.30am, I was lying down dozing in my tent listening to Radio Le Mans (as you do) when someone opened my tent flap - thinking it was one of my lads having a lark after getting back from the circuit, I uttered "who the f**k is that", sat up, and poked my head out of the tent to see someone in dark clothes running away between tents about 20 yards away. Got out, looked around, everything quiet, nobody else around, and all the tents were shut. Kept looking around for a while and then went back in and fell asleep. Woke up at 8 to find one distraught eldest lad - he had woken at about 5am because he was cold - the tent flap was open, his suitcase was gone, as were his car keys. He had been searching around for 3 hours and eventually found his empty wash bag and case, and some of his clothes strewn around about 100 yards away, but no car keys. He thought that all of the stuff inside the car was safe, until we started to look more closely at his car - the car was locked, but the drivers door, rear door and boot lid were all ajar, but shut on the first latch (obviously pushed gently shut to avoid waking anyone) and of course it then dawned that they had rifled through the car, taken what they wanted, shut it, locked it and had taken the keys with them.
A massive thank you to the rest of the group plus the surrounding campers, especially the french guys nearby, who helped to look for the keys, which were found a while later at the side of one of their tents about 50 yards away - at least we would be mobile, without the hassle of a recovery or waiting till Monday for the local dealership to open.
What did they get? 3 passports from a folder under the seat, a cash box with 220 euros in it from the glove box, and rucksack with a mobile phone, a wallet with bank cards and 150 euros, various clothing items and a radio in it from the boot. None of this stuff was visible from outside the car. The culprit had obviously returned later after the surprise encounter with me, avoided my tent, and gone for the lad's tent - he had not woken up, and his case and car keys had been on the floor of the tent alongside him. The result, aside from the loss and the anger, was phone calls to cancel cards and his phone, an early pack up, and heading into town to the Commissariat de Police (Rue Coeffort, just off the Rue Nationale) in the centre near the Place des Jacobins in case anyone else needs it in the future!) to report the theft and sort out getting the three lads back into UK. By the time we had finished it was 1.30 and not worth heading back into the circuit, so we set of home. At the police station at the same time as us. were a group of Danes and another UK group that had been "done" as well.
The negative stuff? The dejection to the point of not really wanting to go in and watch the rest of the race, the anger, invasion of space, the theft, and the unecessary buggeration of cancelling phones and cards, finding the right place to report it all to in Le Mans and dealing with immigration control.
The positive stuff? Nobody died and we were mobile (but nearly not the latter) so it could have been a lot worse - cash, passports and cards can be replaced, and we know the right way to go about getting back into UK without a passport.
That's about it really - I just want everyone to learn something from it - you don't expect thieves to have a go at a tent whilst someone is in it, awake or asleep. So, when you are in your tent, your cash, phones, passports, tickets, valuables and keys need to be up the other end of the tent from the door and stored in such a way that they are not visible and can't be taken without someone being woken. So with no thanks whatsoever to whoever screwed up the enjoyment of Le Mans by three teenagers, we'll be back again next year, bu this time replete with alarms, watchtowers, machine gun nests, an electrified fence and a minefield - then those bast*rds will learn a different sort of lesson from their activities.... all the best for now,
MG Mark
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