SAFETY IN NUMBERS

WHEN THE TRACKING company rang caravan owner Elaine Meers one night last October, to say there had been a power outage in the van she and her husband Steve kept in a storage depot, and which was fitted with a GPS tracking system, she thought nothing of it.

It was a 10.45pm, and she thought that this was almost certainly just a brief quirk in the system. She thanked the operator, put the phone down, and went to bed.

Had the operator explained to her that a power outage is very often the first sign of someone trying to get into the van (something she only found out months later, ironically enough in a newsletter that the company sent her), she might