Man catches thief with Apple AirTag hidden in stone

A thief who was stealing a wall piece by piece was caught when a man put a tracking device in one of the stones.

Matt Smith said people living near Rufford Old Hall in Lancashire, "were getting a bit miffed" with stones being taken from the 300-year-old boundary wall.

So he put an Apple AirTag - a coin-sized tracking device people attack to keys or wallets in case they lose them - inside one of the stone.

Police followed the trail to an address in Wigan, and earlier this month, a man pleaded guilty at Wigan Magistrates' Court to two counts of theft and one count of handling stolen goods.

Last October, about 30 stones went missing from a half-mile-long stretch of road which connects Holmeswood and Rufford.

"We looked at installing some CCTV, but it costs and with the wall being attacked at random places at random times, in a half mile stretch of wall, it was going to be hard to cover that area," Smith, a parish councillor, told BBC Radio Lancashire.

He added: "So we put some lovely 'smile you're on camera' signs up and unfortunately that didn't deter them.

"So I devised a plan and spoke with the owners.

"We'd noticed it was the smaller of the stones that were being taken, so we put a tracking device in what we thought would maybe be the next stone to be taken.

"So there was a bit of guesswork involved."

Matt said he "lifted a couple of the smaller coping stones off, core drilled into the bottom of those and placed in an Apple AirTag, patched up the core, ground it up, put a bit of resin in" and placed it back on the wall.

"Lo and behold, four weeks later my phone started to ping with the tracking device on the move to an address in Winstanley in Wigan," he said.

He contacted the police, who went to the address and made an arrest.

The coping stones were later returned and the "extremely grateful" residents rebuilt the wall.

Last month, Craig Barker, 41, from Wigan, pleaded guilty to theft and handling stolen goods and was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for 22 months.

PC Sean Dalby, of the South Rural Task Force, said: "This case highlights the strong relationships we have developed with our communities and demonstrates the effectiveness of working together to tackle rural and heritage crime.

"I would like to thank the local residents for their support throughout the investigation, as well as those who gave their time to rebuild the wall free of charge."

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