00:00The likelihood that you know someone who's been affected by a car theft isn't that far-fetched.
00:05It's a large crime across the country.
00:07And although across the past few years it has been decreasing slightly, it still does
00:11affect people in key hotspots, like Jen, who lives in Maidstone and had her car stolen
00:16not once but twice out of her own driveway.
00:19On the 6th of March last year, I popped outside at about 11 o'clock in the evening to get
00:29my purse out of the car and the car wasn't there.
00:32Since Jen delivers hot meals for the elderly for a living, she had to buy another car, this
00:37time fitted with more protection.
00:39So, I bought this vehicle and a police-approved steering lock, expensive, recommended by the
00:48police.
00:50And then on the 17th of November at 9.30 in the evening, I got a notification on my app,
00:59to say the doors on my car had been unlocked, I flew out the front door, and this had been
01:05stolen.
01:07Luckily, the second Sportage was found and she was able to collect it, but the whole experience
01:12left her scared that a third theft could happen.
01:15Still, all these months on, every night I'm checking the app to make sure the car is showing
01:22locks.
01:25Now, Jen says she has a lot of anxiety about her car getting stolen again.
01:29In fact, she still has the keys to the blue one, just in case it's ever returned.
01:33Now, she has this new grey one, and it was fitted with a ghost immobiliser.
01:37And she says that in her mind, it's now completely unstealable.
01:42But for drivers here in Kent, what kind of protections can they use?
01:46It's all about the layers, really.
01:48Like anything, the more layers you've got, the better protected you are.
01:51So, we've got alarms, immobilisers, trackers.
01:54Alarms will obviously alert people to a potential breach.
01:57So, if somebody breaks into your car, triggers an alarm, alerts people nearby that there's
02:02a breach.
02:05Immobilisers should help stop them taking your car, so driving it away.
02:11And a tracker, if they do take your car away, you're more likely to get it back if you've
02:16got a decent tracker on the car.
02:17While the statistics show that cases of car theft are decreasing, with a drop of more
02:22than 500 offences between 2024 and 2025 here in Kent, they do still happen, like Jen's
02:28double theft.
02:29And while physical and mechanical protections do help, for those who are affected, it's
02:34the paranoia about their own property being taken that can hurt the most.
02:38Finn McDermid for KMTV in Maidstone.
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