A petrol station owner has installed his own £12,000 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to catch fuel thieves – after growing tired of alleged police inaction. Goran Raven decided to fork out for number plate and facial recognition cameras after losing £30,000 in four years from people driving off without paying for fuel at his forecourt near Romford, East London.
The 49-year-old says he took action after losing faith in his local police force, who he says viewed petrol theft as ‘low-level’ crime. The businessman – whose petrol station has been in his family for nearly a century – claims Essex Police’s lack of interest in the crime drove him to defend himself.
Mr Raven had his ANPR cameras installed at his petrol station around nine months ago, at the cost of around £12,000. He says that these, along with facial recognition technology cameras, have led to a reduction in theft of around 80 per cent.
The dad-of-two said: “I looked at the price (of the ANPR cameras) and thought, ‘That’s expensive’, but when you weigh up the losses it’s saving, it was a simple enough decision to make.”
Mr Raven estimates that he had lost more than £30,000 in the four years before getting the ANPR cameras installed, just from people driving off without paying for petrol.
“It’s a massive problem all across the country,” he continued. “Most police forces don’t take these things as serious crimes. They view it as low-level crime. These tend to be county lines criminals – we are literally fuelling crime.”
The ANPR system works with AI, comparing the plates of vehicles using pumps at the forecourt with those on the DVLA system. If a number plate is registered to a different car than the one it’s attached to, an alert is sent to the store and the pump can be stopped immediately.
The system also stores number plates for drivers who have stolen fuel before, so the pumps can be turned off when one is identified before they get a drop.
“It has reduced fuel theft offences by 80 per cent,” Mr Raven revealed. “As a business, it has been a game-changer. It’s the same people, and they now realise that even with fake plates we are going to stop you. We still get issues, but it’s significantly less.”
Mr Raven, whose family have operated the petrol station since 1929, says he grew frustrated by the alleged inaction of Essex Police to chase and prosecute criminals.
“I would go as far as calling police forces institutionally incompetent on this issue,” Mr Raven said. “We are a little village, surrounded by green fields and you wouldn’t think you would get targeted by criminals like we do.
“We stopped reporting crimes to the police about three or four years ago. I would provide names and addresses of shoplifters… But it was a waste of time.
“I did an FOI request to Essex Police for recorded crime over the last 10 years. They came back with the data for seven years, and the rate of solving crimes was about seven per cent – horrifically low. Now, the police claim there’s no problem because no one reports the crimes.
“I think police forces are equally as incompetent as each other. Some police forces are taking this seriously; at one point Essex Police did.”
Mr Raven also invested in facial recognition cameras around nine months ago to deter shoplifters at the Budgens store on his forecourt.
“It’s phenomenally successful,” he said. “We won’t confront the customer (when it highlights them as a shoplifter). We offer them great customer service, asking if they need help with anything: that’s normally enough for them to swear at us and walk out the door.
“We are never going to stop all shoplifters, but people see the sign and walk away. It’s a great preventative measure.”
However, Mr Raven says that, realistically, would-be thieves deterred by his new technology will simply move onto another more vulnerable business.
He said: “I have to think about my family business. I’m the fourth generation – we’ve been here 96 years, selling Shell fuel since 1929. We are not part of government tick boxes, but we can defend ourselves and make it hard for people to commit crime.
“I’ve got friends who are police officers and I feel very sorry for the individuals, but for the organisations I have no sympathy at all. They choose some very strange stances. But the thieves are going to other petrol stations now, which is unfortunate.”
A spokesperson for Essex Police said: “The number of making off without payment offences has almost halved in the last year.
“Our specialist Business Crime Team work with businesses of all kinds to tackle persistent offenders and take measures to protect their business, and the force has secured more than 3,000 charges for theft from a shop offences in the last year alone.
“There are a number of steps businesses in the sector can take to prevent non-payment of fuel and we will work with businesses to implement crime prevention.
“Because we value our neighbourhoods, including our hardworking local businesses, we increased the size of our Neighbourhood Policing Teams at the start of April and since then they have secured more than 900 charges.
“All the while reported crime has fallen across the county and in the first half of 2025 we achieved a 10 percent increase in charges secured compared to the same period last year.”
