back to article Man beaten and stabbed by Gumtree scammers

Police today warned users of the popular classifieds website Gumtree to be on their guard after a man who responded to a car advert was almost killed in a brutal robbery. On July 30 the 42-year-old took a large amount of cash to meet the supposed seller of a VW Golf in Barking, east London. He was punched, kicked and stabbed …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Lawrence 7
    FAIL

    Fail

    He was punched, kicked and stabbed while trying to hold on to his bag, witnesses reported.

    He was rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery.

    ....

    A 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old youth were arrested near the scene.

    The pair are out on police bail....

    Justice System Fail.

  2. Simpson

    Silly GB

    "was almost killed in a brutal robbery"...

    "The pair are out on police bail until October 7"

    Did the police let them use the stolen cash, as bail?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Clearly, the two arrestees can't be serious contenders...

    After all they have been let out on police bail in a case of (apparently) violent assault and attempted murder. Or am I pre-judging the case?

  4. JeeBee
    FAIL

    East London, pleasant place, I should know.

    And that was just the Millwall supporters - he never got to see the car sellers.

    And seconded about the justice system fail.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Shouldn't they be remanded??

    For a violent criime surely they should be remanded in custody??

    Anyway, there's loads of scammers on gumtree (much like anywhere else really I guess) but the moderators seem so slow in removing reported postings, and there is no sign of proactive activity with recurring spammers/scammers. The most obvious ones are the short url ones and ridiculously low pricing of ficticious high demand items.

  6. ThomH

    @Simpson & Lawrence 7

    Yeah, how dare we assume people are innocent until proven guilty? The world would be a much better place if the state could just detain anyone they wanted for as long as they wanted.

  7. Alex Rose

    @Simpson

    Look up the meaning of the phrase "police bail".

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Bail???

    So they almost kill a man and they are allowed out to do the same again? It seems you only go to jail for what you say nowadays.......

    What a truly terrible Govt.

  9. RichardB

    CCTV

    Presumably no use on this one?

    Much safer to ban the internets.

  10. Pheet
    FAIL

    Reading comprehension skills fail

    "A 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old youth were arrested near the scene."

    That means the police arrested 2 people NEAR the scene of the crime, that, one hopes, fit the description of the attackers. It means that the police have NOT arrested 2 people caught in the act, or directly at the scene.

    It could be the perpetrators, or it could easily be 2 people being in the wrong place at the wrong time who vaguely fit the description given by witnesses (e.g. 2 blokes, one tall one fat).

    Given that that they've been given bail, it means that have a verifiable address, and probable were not covered in blood or such, otherwise the police would be bragging "we definitely got them". Police arrest the wrong people all the time, that's why we bother with court cases.

    I really hope that the commenters with the knee jerk reaction don't work as admins/programmers/engineers, and are only managers or such...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @ Bail???

    "So they almost kill a man and they are allowed out to do the same again?"

    So they ALLEGEDLY almost kill a man and they are allowed out to do the same again?

    Yep, unless you do something really serious like oh, I dont know, take a photo of a policeman whilst being "too tall" or wander around "looking shifty" you are fucked

  12. Marvin the Martian
    FAIL

    Let's blame the victim.

    The victim went with a cool 5000quid in his pockets for a first viewing of a car? Not 100% clever.

    In my book, that kind of money means there's time for a trip to the bank together; to be sure it's genuine cash, and deposit it immediately.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    and yet...

    When I once sold a rather expensive camera and arranged to meet the buyer who wanted to pay cash outside Harrow Wealdstone police station in the middle of the day, our names and addresses were both taken down in case we were handing stolen goods.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    man

    Are people still stupid enough to not follow basic personal safety rules (meet somewhere busy, tell others where you're going, take a friend, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is) I think we should use this stupidity as a way to get rid of large sections of the population.

    You promise free money, get a giant garbage compactor, lead them in with signs saying "yes free money here" and then compact them. Should get a good 10 million in England alone!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gum tree is terrible...

    The moment the Nokia N97 was announced there were adverts for it on sale on Gumtree. Expensive digital SLRs regularly appear for sale at half their going rate on ebay.

    The personals section is amusing, if nothing else. Send an email to one and you'll get a load of automated spam back. I never did find a genuine advert.

    I even emailed gumtree and suggested that they might want to introduce a capture code to at least de-automate the spam in the personals section... After about two weeks they replied basically saying how dare I talk to them like that (I was perfectly civil and polite), and that they knew exactly what they were doing, and false adverts were not a major problem.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If it wasnt so serious, you would laugh

    OK bring a bag of cash and lets meet down an dark ally, oh and come alone!

    The words, Fool and Money spring to mind!

  17. Lawrence 7
    Thumb Up

    @ Pheet, ThomH

    I reserve my Commentard right to make knee jerk reactions of little substamce regarding Daily Mail-esque stories about the horrors of Modern Life on this here Article.

    Why Bail two people under suspicion (Bailed, not let go) of such a serious sounding offence? Obviously Im held to El reg's Chris Williams' straight up reporting and trust they saw this all happen first hand and have not embellished any part whatsoever. That said, They potentially, if the right fellas, could get involved in some other dodgy activity and encounter another good citizen type who puts up a fight and stick him/Her when him/her doesnt give up the loot, and they potentially end up killing someone.

  18. Matthew Anderson

    Police Bail?

    Why o why are such a calculated and brutal pair who committed violence with a knife on top of an already vicious beating, out on police bail? Surely to god they should be remanded in jail before given a lengthy sentence?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    This could have been a good title but its secret

    "After all they have been let out on police bail in a case of (apparently) violent assault and attempted murder. Or am I pre-judging the case?"

    No they were arrested so clearly they MUST also be guilty. Same reson we should put all suspects into the data bases cause they are all guilty too aren´t they?

  20. Graham Marsden
    Grenade

    Re: On Police bail comments

    Don't forget that they'll have had their DNA and fingerprints taken and those records will be kept ad infinitum even if they turn out to have had nothing to do with the crime (if the Police and Government get their way), which has got to be a good thing, hasn't it?

  21. The Jase

    suspects

    If these SUSPECTS should be held without bail, then so should tall photographers in Kent.

  22. Maty

    okay ...

    a.) Assuming our victim has revived after his 'life-saving surgery' :

    'Now Sir, look at these pictures. Do you recognize the people who stabbed you?'

    'Yes/No'.

    QED. Or is that CID?

    b.) If the pair were arrested 'near' the scene of the attack, what chances had they to hide the money and knife?

    c.) Is that 'released on police bail' without charge (because they are merely suspects), or released after being charged (deserving of general outrage)?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like