Metal knives out for us, says boss

Reporter: HELEN KORN
Date published: 15 October 2012


THE boss of Monarch Metals in Chadderton is brassed off with police.
Police inspected the Arkwright Street site and 63 other merchants across the county to stem the rise in metal thefts.

But police found nothing after checking the site for more than 90 minutes — and they haven’t over the dozen times they have visited in the last year.

Police say the checks are made based on intelligence, but owner Alan Watson and his staff insist the company is clean.

“They’ve still got copper of mine they took,” he said. “We’ve put a load of CCTV cameras up because the police asked us to — it cost a fortune. We’ve got everything logged on computer now, it’s all legit. They’ve never found anything.”

He added: “We’re really busy at the moment so we could do without things like this. Last Thursday we had 120 customers. The cops only spend 10 minutes at other sites.

“We sponsor Dr Kershaw’s, Latics and Saddleworth Rangers — but no one hears about any of that, just that we’ve had the cops round again. It’s wrong. We haven’t done anything bad and the police won’t find anything any time they visit us.”


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