Police raid Brentford houseboat (From Your Local Guardian)

Police raid Brentford houseboat

1:57pm Thursday 30th July 2009 in Local news By Lucy Buckland

Police raided a Brentford houseboat and found £5,000 worth of stolen solar panels.

Officers stormed the boat, moored in Brentford, yesterday morning and arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

Police found five stolen solar panels and a unique waterproof generator box which is needed to switch on the equipment.

Polcie were alerted by the Environment Agency after a barge was raided between February and March and covertly staked out houseboats along the Thames.

Matt Loewenthal, senior environment monitoring officer for the Environment Agency said "The solar panels that were stolen are absolutely vital to our work as they are our only source of power out on the River Thames.

"We lost thousands of pounds of equipment, but even more important than the financial loss is the data that was lost and we can't get back. The equipment that was stolen power our water quality monitoring equipment which provide us with crucial information about the health of the river.

"These systems are our eyes and ears, without them we cannot manage and protect one of the countries most iconic rivers."