A mother-of-four from Little Hulton was forced to track down her stolen Audi herself after police failed to take any action, recovering the vehicle on Saturday night with different number plates attached.
Jacinda Batalha, 35, from Bolton, was asleep at home with her husband and young children – the youngest of whom is just one – when she was woken by an alert on her Ring doorbell around 3am on Monday, August 10. The camera footage showed a masked figure outside her house, stealing her Audi A7.
Doorbell camera captures theft
“It was one person, his face was covered and he was wearing gloves,” said Ms Batalha. “He had definitely come prepared. It was very scary. I started screaming so that he would run away but he didn’t, he just carried on.”
She woke up her partner but the thief was able to get away. She believes he was able to steal the car keys after entering through a window that was open downstairs.
Police response and tracking the car
Ms Batalha called the police, who arrived about 10 minutes later. She said: “They told me it happens a lot in this area, that it was probably kids. They said it like it’s something normal.”
Ms Batalha, who works for Amazon, then called the Audi dealership. After having to prove ownership of the car, as well as her identity, they told her she could download an app to track the location of her vehicle.
Eventually, on Saturday afternoon, the app showed Ms Batalha’s car was on a street in Blackburn. She headed straight there with a friend, while her husband drove separately. By the time they arrived the car had gone, so Ms Batalha asked the neighbours if they had seen anything.
“One lady showed us her doorbell footage and it showed my car parked outside. But it had a different number plate so I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I checked the number plate and it was one for a Seat Ibiza so I knew it was my car. They had switched the plates.”
Recovery and aftermath
Four hours later, the car’s location showed up on the app, suggesting that the driver had gone to refuel it. They traced the vehicle to Colne, in Lancashire. This time, they saw the car parked on a street but it had another set of number plates attached.
Ms Batalha’s partner had a second set of keys with him and unlocked the door. She said: “I saw my real plates inside the car, all broken. [The thief] also left a lot of things inside the car, my children's books were still inside. I don’t know who stole my car and if the person driving on Saturday was the same person who stole it or if the thief sold it to someone else.”
Ms Batalha then drove the car to Swinton police station so that officers could carry out any further enquiries. “I thought because it might have fingerprints all over it they can find out who did it,” she said. “They just said, you’ve recovered the car, we’re not going to do anything further now. [The thief] also went to an off licence and put in fuel. The shop owners told me they can only give the footage to the police if they want it. I feel like we had to do the police’s job. Audi told me they could help the police if they called them, but they don’t care.”
While the mother-of-four doesn’t wish to encourage others to hunt down car thieves themselves, she is urging them to be aware that they might be changing number plates to avoid detection.
In the meantime, Ms Batalha is scared that the thief might return. “I couldn’t sleep at all after that night. I slept for maybe two hours because I was watching my camera,” she said. “The guy knows where we live. I don’t feel safe living here anymore. My 10-year-old son keeps going to the window if anyone walks past, I think he’s just traumatised. And if anything happens again I won’t feel confident contacting the police. I’ll just sort it myself.”
GMP was contacted for a comment.
