Southampton man catches moped gang breaking into ten garages

Jason Kauder was woken in the early hours of the morning by the sound of an alarm blaring.

The 52-year-old raced from his home in the Bitterne area to Wavell Road to find a gang of six youths with mopeds trying to kick down the doors of his, and nine other garages.

When he confronted them “they scarpered very, very quickly” with one of them “running off like a coward”.

Damaged garage doors.

However, Jason, a taxi driver, who believes the youths are the same gang which has been targetting properties in Shirley, blames their parents.

He said: “They’re just young kids, just young children.

• Masked gang raid Southampton home and steal £10k moped

“People must know who they are. One of them had a Honda Repsol 125.

“That’s a two-thousand-pound motorcycle.

“As a parent, you would know if your kid’s got one of those outside your house or even in the shed or your garden.”

Jason Kauder.

Jason says he has nothing of value in his garage and has described the incident at around 3am on Tuesday as a nuisance.

He added: “I feel pretty disappointed that I had to go down there at 3am, I feel disappointed I had to mend the garage door.

“But there was other people there. There was one guy whose wife was waiting to go to hospital but where they damaged his door and he couldn’t get his car out, his wife was late for her appointment.”

Jason added: “Someone somewhere knows these children, knows that it’s their children doing it.

• Southampton residents feel ‘unsafe’ following burglaries by masked gangs

“Parents need to either stop them doing it, or if they can’t stop them doing it, report them to the police. What next?

“It still boils down to the parents somewhere know about this and shame on the parents.”

A spokesperson for Hampshire Police has said that officers are keeping an open mind as to whether the incident is linked to other recent crimes involving mopeds across the city.

The force has confirmed that approximately ten garages were either damaged or broken into. Furthermore, a number of vehicles were damaged and a bicycle was stolen.

Anyone with information is urged to call police on 101, quoting reference 44210470064.