Shocking moment porch pirate rips open and steals £200 parcel

Shocking moment porch pirate rips open parcel left by back door containing £200 of electronics – before brazenly coming back to steal goods

  • He returned five more times to scope out flat in Mexborough, South Yorkshire 

Doorbell cam footage captured the shocking moment a porch pirate stamped and ripped open a package full of £200 electronics – before brazenly coming back with a carrier bag to steal the goods.   

The middle-aged man wearing a dark green top appears in the footage with his dog and scopes out the package by the back door of the one-bed ground floor flat in Mexborough, Doncaster, in South Yorkshire. 

He prods the top of the parcel with his fingers before grinding his heel into it. He then turns around, appearing to check if the coast is clear, before raising his leg and stamping the bottom of his foot into the box. 

The brazen doorstep thief tears the box open and rummages through before tipping the contents onto ground. 

He then walks away before shortly returning with a carrier bag which he uses to stuff the items in. 

Disturbingly, he was then filmed returning around five more times to scope out the address over the days that followed.

The anonymous homeowner said they’d left the parcel for a collection driver and had seen the man – who is known to him – taking the items on a Ring doorbell camera.

He’d later felt scared to return to his home with his partner – adding that antisocial behaviour was growing worse in the area.

The resident said: ‘I was meant to get that parcel picked up by Royal Mail.

The porch pirate rummages through the package outside the back door of a ground-floor flat in Mexborough, South Yorkshire 

‘When he came around that day, I was at my family’s home. That’s when the Ring doorbell went off. I saw him messing with it. I couldn’t react in time.

‘I rang 999, and said there was “somebody stealing my stuff”. They said, “Don’t worry about it. There’s not a threat to life, ring 101”.

‘But when they saw the footage, they were shocked that he’d ripped up bits of the box.’

He added: ‘We were meant to be staying two days with my family. But that turned into five to ten days.’

The shocked resident said the incident had unfolded on October 13 after he left the parcel full of electronics for collection at the back of his council-rented property.

But he said the driver failed to see a note on his front door telling them where to find the package, which then left the item on display for several hours.

Later footage showed him returning to examine the back porch and front of the property again, perhaps in the hope of finding other items to pilfer.

He scoped out the package before driving his heel into the box and ripping it open. He then pours the contents out onto the floor

He later brazenly returned with a carrier bag which he used to stuff his stash into before walking away


The homeowner had left the package by his back door wrapped in gaffer tape for the Royal Mail to collect (left) only for the thief to tear through the box and steal the contents (right)  

The homeowner added: ‘He took bits out of it and left. 

‘I thought “That’s the end of it”, and I’ll ring Cash Converters. But later that day, he came back to look at what he had done.

‘At that point, I was still with my family. I thought, “Why has he come back?” I wanted to come home, but I didn’t feel safe.

‘A few days later, he came back. And a days after that, he’s just come back and forth.’

A spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police said: ‘The victim states that he left a parcel on his doorstep for Royal Mail to collect and a man has opened the package and stole items from within it.

‘It is under investigation at the moment.’

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