The Milk Thief of Mornington Grove

A bottle of orange juice

A bottle of orange juice, and a bottle of milk….

Empty-handed

THE MILK THIEF OF MORNINGTON GROVE

The milkman from Parker Dairies delivers milk to houses in Mornington Grove and has done for decades – without trouble.

But in May and June 2020 someone began thieving milk and other items delivered by the milkman.  They stole from three houses.   As a result, one house stopped having deliveries from the milkman. Milkman said that in the 18 years he’d been delivering down Mornington Grove there’d never been any theft before.  I tried keeping watch at 5am on delivery days – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but never spotted the thief.  But the thieving stopped.

February 2021 interference with deliveries again – on one occasion a bottle of orange juice taken but placed in a garden up the street. In March 2021 I got a security camera which I placed in the window, looking out at the front path, the camera visible to anyone approaching looking carefully at the house.  That seemed to put a stop to it and after a long period with no problem, I switched the camera off.

Monday 17 January 2022 a pint of milk was stolen from my front door. The milkman left it at around 05:00, it was not there when I looked for it at 07:00.

I switched the camera on again.

Monday 31 Jan 2022 at 06:13 the thief, a tall fellow with a woman companion wearing a red scarf, was filmed coming up my path, but stepping over the fence to take orange juice from my next-door neighbour. 

To try and get a different view, some idea of where they might have come from, I repositioned the camera at a first floor window, looking down with a wider view of the street.

Monday 14Feb 2022 at 06:23 apparently the same fellow, but without a companion, stole orange juice and milk from my neighbour. Filmed.

Monday 21 Feb – foiled. The milk was delivered, as usual, at 05:10.  I had arranged with the milkman that both my milk and my neighbour’s be delivered to my door, and at 05:12 I took the milk in.  At 05:26, the would-be thief appears, again with his female companion, and searches for milk at my neighbour’s, then goes left to next-door-but-one, then disappears off-screen right, then re-enters and crosses the road and searches around the doorway at the house opposite – perhaps remembering the milk that used to be delivered – and stolen – next-door to that one before they stopped getting milk because it was being stolen.

These last three events, 31 Jan, 14 Feb, 21 Feb, I have on film.  So far no-one in the street recognises the thief or his companion.  On 21 Feb, when he failed to find any milk at our doors, the milkman reports that milk was stolen from an address in Arnold Road.