NEWS AND COMMENT: This story is a terrible indictment of the state of play in the UK on the issue of dog theft. Brandy is an eight-month-old dachshund who belongs to a Ukrainian family living in Lviv. They gave up Brandy to a UK friend, Jolanta Marczyk, in order to save the dog’s life; to get their dog out of Ukraine.
Jolanta picked up brandy at the Polish/Ukraine border and drove her back to Grays, Essex last Tuesday. The Independent reports that she drove to Lviv to collect Brandy.
Jolanta appears to have had Brandy in her car at the time of the theft. Her car was parked on a quiet road according to the Metro.co.uk website. Brandy was snatched by thieves from the vehicle. The theft was caught on security cameras as you can see in the photograph.
It appears to me that Jolanta left the car unlocked. Although the report (see below) does not support this assessment. I don’t want to be critical but would this theft have happened but for the fact that Jolanta was apparently careless (on my assessment)? Unless this couple of criminals actually broke into the car but this is not reported. Although they say they ‘forced’ their way into the car.
Update: I have seen the video below for the first time and it seems that the driver’s window was left open or partially open and the thieves forced the window further open to reach in a take Brady. They thieves were reaching inside the car. Doors were not opened it seems to me.
Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which stops it working here. I have no control over this.
Brandy managed to wriggle free from the thieves. Subsequently, she became lost on the street and they searched started. The next day Jolanta heard that Brandy had been found and that she was at a veterinarian.
She had been hit by a vehicle and that suffered serious injuries including multiple skull fractures and a broken nose.
Jolanta has had to pay veterinary bills of £6,500. With her neighbour and friend, she has set up an online crowdfunding page to try and pay for the veterinary fees.
The Essex Police are investigating. The theft was reported to the police just after 6:20 PM on Thursday, March 24, 2022. They say it was reported that three people ‘forced’ their way into a vehicle and took a dachshund dog. That statement indicates that they broke into the car but it might be a misleading statement.
It is terribly sad that Brandy had managed to “escape” to safety but has now been severely injured in the UK which was meant to be a safe haven for this dog. As I mentioned at the beginning it is an indictment as to the level of theft in this country although is probably pure bad luck that it actually happened to Brandy.
