A former soldier could be behind a string of burglaries of wealthy residents in the home counties, stealing items worth about £1m, police believe.
The burglar, armed with a sawn-off shotgun and described as well-spoken and intelligent, carried out at least seven raids, approximately every six months, between November 2014 and October 2017.
CCTV footage captured him staking out target properties for weeks to establish the comings and goings of occupants and even entering homes in advance to locate valuables and safes.
This painstaking attention to detail, the use of cable ties to bind the hands of victims and the level of violence used against them have led detectives to conclude he may have been in the armed services.
DI Dee Fielding, from Surrey police, said: “We do not believe this to be the work of an opportunist burglar, but someone who has specialist knowledge and skills – possibly ex-forces or from a similar background, due to the way he has behaved and the circumstances of each incident.
“The burglaries all appear to be the work of someone who knows exactly what they are doing and who is incredibly decisive in their actions. On each occasion, unnecessary levels of violence have been used, in addition to a firearm which he used to threaten the victims who have then been tied up.”
Two of the burglaries were in Kingswood, Surrey, and the others were in Maidenhead, Berkshire; Chichester, West Sussex; Sevenoaks, Kent; Maidstone, Kent, and Virginia Water, Surrey.
Fielding said that more than £1m of items had been taken in total including irreplaceable heirlooms.
Susan Morris, 61, was alone and working on her computer at her home in Kingswood on 26 October last year when the man, dressed in black and wearing a balaclava, crept up behind her and demanded to be taken to the safe.
“I gave him a lot of jewellery from the safe and I said to him, ‘You have got very valuable stuff there, now get out,’ but he wasn’t happy with that; he asked for more jewellery, I gave him some more jewellery and he then wanted more jewellery, and this is when he really got angry and started to hit me,” she said.
“He hit me very hard on my face, not enough to knock me out, he knew exactly how hard to hit me. He hit me three times on my face, it was very painful. I couldn’t believe the blows kept coming.”
Morris suffered a broken jaw and bruising to her face, losing a tooth. The burglar then bound her hands with cable ties and dragged her by her hair to another part of the house.
She said her ordeal only came to an end when she told the raider that her husband was due home soon. Among the items taken were three rings belonging to her mother-in-law, who died last year, and a brooch belonging to her mother, who died when she was 17.
Morris said: “At one point when he was hitting me, with the gun pointing at me, at that moment I did actually think, this is it, it’s all over.”
In another raid, the burglar spent more than an hour with the occupants until he had gathered all the items he wished to steal.
Fielding said that DNA was found at one of the properties, but there was no match with previous offenders. The man officers are looking for is white, of stocky build and about 1.8 metres (6ft) tall with a southern accent. Police believe he may have carried out further burglaries when residents were not at home.
