Alert regarding theft

[Marianne Ralf]

I want to altert users on this site in relation to posts earlier this week regarding theft of a boat from Oxford:

We are the owners of the boat Ruby, reg nr 506091  (though the name has now been painted over as below).

I’m not going to get into a dispute here, it’s clearly not a forum for that, but I want to put the story straight from our perspective & hope it serves as a cautionary tale for others.

So, we have some questions:

If you’d just spent £42,000 on a beautiful boat would you drive like a maniac (sometimes during the night) through flood locks and ice and smash the bow as you clearly have (clearly shown on pictures taken taken yesterday at Ratcliffe Lock on the River Soar).

Why were you in such a hurry anyway? In one post you claimed you had a hospital appointment to get to….hmmm… wouldn’t most people just moor up and take a train?

On another you claimed to have actually been in hospital last weekend when there is clear evidence that you were on the move and that someone attempted to steal the boat!!

Why, especially if you were in such a hurry, would you stop and take the time to very carefully paint over the name of the boat?

Why would you cover the reg number when going through Foxton (CCTV footage) unless you needed to disguise the identity of the boat?

Why on earth, if this was your first boat, would you set off to travel during a national lockdown in the wettest January for years with the waterways in flood, sometime travelling at night time?  You say you were learning the ropes!  You told us that you’d lived on boats for most of your life, had worked for the RCR in the past and reiterated in several texts how confident you were with servicing engines etc. So which story is it?

Why did you cancel an appointment with us in late January, saying you had Covid, but actually we can now see that you were travelling as fast as you could away from Oxford, well beyond our agreed cruising range. You should at least have been quarantining… there are fines for that.

You then put us off again, because the towpaths were flooded on the stretch of river where you claimed to be and when we eventually insisted on a meeting and you texted to confirm your location on the Cherwell, just north of Oxford, and we walked the towpath looking for you and realised you’d gone, did you block your phone and email so that we lost contact with you?

Who actually are you? On all correspondence you claimed to be Granger Harper, but on the bank transfer for the security deposit of £1000  (the only money that has every exchanged hands between us) you appeared for the first time as Granger Egan? on this site you are registered under at least 2 different names:  "Granger" & "ghe" (granger harper eagan).  What are you hiding?

Why can’t we find any trace of you? Even the address you gave us turns out to be false…

And the false references you provided who we also can’t now trace?  One of those, Sarah Wood (email name Stacey Wood), is she the woman now travelling with you on our boat?

We are very sorry for any ill health you might be experiencing, but you have given several different versions of this to different people along the way…so, we’re not quite sure how any of this adds up either...ptsd, dementia, Parkinson's...

The police are saying that as this is a “breach of agreement” it is a civil matter.. It seems to be clear theft and fraud to us… if these aren’t crimes, then what are they?? Perhaps trusting someone is now counted as criminal negligence?

How is it possible to register a boat without proper paperwork, a log book or legal proof of ownership?  This has got to change… We’ve heard too many stories of similar things happening to other boaters.  We’re talking about people’s homes here and often huge sums of money…

We will pursue this

And for anyone reading here, please don’t be duped as we have been.. at least ask for photo ID before doing any work with or for this man, whoever he really is or for that matter before entrusting your precious home to anyone however charming they appear to be.. hindsight is a great thing… Thank you to everyone who has tried so hard these last few days to help us get our boat back

[Athy]

Welcome to the forum, Marianne, and thank you for your detailed and obviously heartfelt post.

The other thread dealing with this situation has been locked because of possible legal implications. So, while your post will remain visible to members, no replies will be permitted at this stage.