‘Lowest of the low’: Men arrested after catalytic converter stolen at Chesterfield Royal Hospital

Officers with Derbyshire Roads Policing Unit made the arrests on Thursday after being alerted by hospital security staff.

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A spokesperson for the unit said: “Still in the grip of a pandemic which has tested and strained the NHS and their wonderful staff, it seems appropriate to describe those who target those staff as their next victim as the lowest of the low.

“Unfortunately, though, that is what these criminals are – targeting NHS staff, patients and visitors in order to get the next paycheck from a dodgy metal merchant.

“So quite rightly when we got a report from the security team at Chesterfield Royal Hospital that they'd disrupted three males in a vehicle stealing catalytic converters we were on their case immediately.

“Failing to accept responsibility for their actions, the suspects scarpered in their uninsured Renault and booted it out the town.

“Not today chaps – it was intercepted and it failed to stop in Stony Houghton going down a track.

“All three males were rounded up and arrested.

“Their vehicle was seized along with all the tools used to cause damage, cost and upset to their victims.

“Unfortunately it seems they managed one before we got them but no doubt they had got others in their crooked sights.”

Earlier this year, police said they had seen a rise in thefts of catalytic converters in Derbyshire.

Catalytic converters, which are a device on vehicle exhausts designed to reduce toxic gases and pollutants, are being stolen because they are made of precious metals.

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