Saturday, December 22, 2007

Thieves Target Historic Church Roofs


It was bad enough that thieves had stolen a roof, but outrageous that what they took topped the pride of this town, the soaring 12th-century Tewkesbury Abbey.


"It's awful. It's disastrous. It's incredibly sad," said Antonia Black, a local artist sitting in a cozy delicatessen on the town's quiet main street.


In addition to the abbey, she said, two other local churches have experienced their roofs being stripped, including one she had just visited: "On Sunday, we were sitting in service and the vicar said, 'Look up,' and we could see the sky."


The rooftop thefts, which have reached epidemic proportions, with more than 1,000 churches hit this year, are a function of the cost of lead. It has jumped from $450 a ton five years ago to $3,200 this year, according to police and insurance industry officials.


From one end of Britain to the other, there are centuries-old Anglican churches with the lead roofs that were popular in medieval times. Historic preservation laws require these landmarks to be repaired with original building materials, and so sometimes after repairs are finished, burglars strike again.


"Churches have always been a target for thieves, but this is particularly shocking because they are ripping the very fabric off the building," said Chris Pitt, spokesman for Ecclesiastic Insurance Group, a company that insures 16,500 Anglican churches in the United Kingdom.


More than 2,000 claims have been filed for metal thefts at churches in 2007, compared with 80 claims just two years ago, Pitt said.


'ICON OF HOPE'


Stone spires have been yanked away to get at the stuff. Holes in roofs have gone unnoticed until downpours inflict further damage, including the destruction of a $40,000 organ in one church.


The Rev. Canon Paul Williams, vicar of Tewkesbury Abbey, said parishioners see the centuries-old church as "an icon of hope," but thieves see it as an open cash drawer.


"We basically have pound notes stuck to the roof and professional criminals are risking their lives to get them down," he said. "Parishioners are really quite upset. This abbey is the heart and soul of this town."


Mike Jones, a carpenter who was working on the timber facade of the town's YMCA, said the church thieves might be working in daylight, pulling tons of lead off roofs and tossing it into their trucks.


"Nobody takes any notice when they see men on a roof," he said. "There are so many old buildings around here and they are always needing repair."


Theft of all kinds of metals is rising. Copper, for example, has also skyrocketed in value, now fetching around $7,000 a ton, up from $1,600 five years ago, according to the London Metal Exchange. This has led to thefts of copper cables from railways and power stations, British transport police say.


But many criminals favor lead, police say, because a ton can be ripped out of just a small patch of roof relatively quickly, and because so many old uninhabited buildings have it.


EASY TO STEAL


"It has a high street value and it's relatively easy to steal," said Tewkesbury detective Karen Janneh.


Janneh said police are going undercover and alerting scrap yards to cooperate in stopping the thefts. Tony Bennett, a partner at Bennett Brothers, which does metal recycling in northwest England, said police asked him to be "on the lookout for anything suspicious."


But recyclers, who use old lead for new products, particularly batteries, often have no idea whether the metal has come from a historic church or someone's underground plumbing, Bennett said. One batch of lead, he said, "looks the same as the last batch."


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