Bolton: Concern over catalytic converter thefts

Multiple thefts took place on the Flower PotE estate in early 2021 – but no one has ever been prosecuted for this.

At the time a ward councillor said a woman stayed by her window all night due to fear that her car would be targeted.

Statistics showed that Greater Manchester suffers a higher rate of these thefts than the national average.

And Farnworth councillor Sue Haworth said this has prompted concerns among constituents.

She said: “There is a worry again about this, particularly as there has been publicity about the problem in Greater Manchester.”

The comments were made at a recent Police and Communities Together (PACT) meeting in Farnworth.

Read more: Greater Manchester worse for theft of catalytic converters

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Detective Sergeant Craig Wallace acknowledged it had been an issue.

He said : “With catalytic converters we did go through a long time when they were getting chopped off.

“There is precious materials in them so people with saws were chopping them off.”

Another officer at the meeting said there had been four of five such thefts on the Flower Pot estate 18 months ago, but he had not been made aware of any other reports.

He also said no one had ever been prosecuted in relation to the thefts in 2021.

The most recent case of a catalytic converter theft was in Bolton at a multi storey car park in the town centre.

In 2022 there were 1,214 thefts of catalytic converters recorded by Greater Manchester Police, equivalent to 101.97 per 100,000 households.

That rate is the tenth highest region in a list that has London, with 298.87 per 100,000 households at the top.

Nationwide data shows that that just one per cent of these crimes result in someone being charged between 2017 and 2021, although data for GMP was not used in the analysis.