Thieves uncover key to car theft

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Thieves are aiming to steal ignition keys to take cars rather than attempting to break into the vehicles, it has been revealed.

Key theft is particularly prevalent among criminals who target the more expensive cars, insurance company esure found.

Improvements in vehicle security systems have made it harder to break in and cut the number of cars stolen each year in the UK, the firm said.

But since the beginning of this year, as many as 93% of esure's car theft claims where the vehicle was worth more than £10,000 and had either failed to turn up or been found burnt out involved the original keys being used to steal it.

Of those, 72% followed a burglary at the policyholder's home.

Esure said a new trend this year was "gym locker car thefts" where criminals follow people from the car park into their sports centre and force their locker open to steal keys and then the vehicle.

Other types of theft include keys being stolen by violent car-jacking and incidents where owners had opened the boot with the keys still in the ignition and thieves took their chance to steal it.

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