Candid Caller

ONE OF the country's greatest unsolved crimes is the probably pointless car-radio theft. This week the Candid Caller, in a probing motoring special, asked: Have you ever had a car radio stolen? And what do you think the motoring thieves do with the radios they steal?

Brian Pinch of Liverpool: 'No, but then I only have a battered company car. Stolen car radios are sold or passed on. I reckon they're nicked to order - someone asks around in a pub for one and a car thief goes to work.'

Charles Breakwell of Southampton: 'Potential thieves take one look at my car radio and decide it's so ordinary it's not worth touching. I imagine most car-radio thefts are by kids stealing them to sell to other kids. My own children, when they were younger, would spend pounds 20 on an old banger and then pounds 25 on a radio for it.'

Julie Copper of Cardiff: 'I've had a radio-cassette stolen twice, although more annoying than the thefts was the quarter-light being smashed in the process. I've no idea what happens to them, I've never heard of anyone buying a second-hand radio anywhere.'

Christopher Constable of Tyneside: 'I work in an inner-city area and my general impression is that car-radio thefts are carried out by younger kids who are practising their thieving skills. Snatching a radio is something they can do relatively quickly. Afterwards the radios are either thrown away or passed on to older brothers to sell in pubs.'

John Sergeant of Coventry: 'I've had two car radios stolen in the last two years. I expect after they have been stolen they turn up at car-boot sales or, discreetly, in pubs. To get around the problem I've now got a pull-out radio and, when I park, I put it in a carrier bag and take it with me.'

Simon Bates, Radio One DJ: 'Having a car window broken and the car radio stolen changes an ordinary, everyday, moderately freethinking Liberal Englishman into a raving, fascist maniac.

'I had my radio stolen from my Volvo last year. The police caught the thief and recovered the radio, then asked if I wanted to press charges. I said I didn't until they told me it had been irreparably smashed]

'I think there's only one car-radio thief in the entire country and he's got them all and is still trying to find Radio 5.'