ANORAKS TO DIE FOR

Charlotte Eagar on how the

train-spotter's derided uniform has become the ultimate target for thieves

TRADITIONALLY the anorak has kept a low profile. Warm and waterproof but essentially unsmart, it remained the de- spised outer garment of the humble train- spotter. But now in South Shields the anorak has achieved an appalling notorie- ty. By the vagaries of fashion it's become dead trendy and in its very trendiness lies its undoing.

When Colin Atkins and Dale Roberts crashed their car earlier last month, their deaths ignited riots which swept Tyneside. Atkins and Roberts died in a car chase, pursued by the police to assist with their enquiries. But Atkins and Rober,ts weren't just joy-riders, they were out on a ram raid; young men in fast cars driving through shopping precincts, accelerating into plate-glass windows and piling up the boot with plunder. Ram raiding isn't just normal nicking. It's fast, dangerous, and specialised. They don't nick cash, they nick anoraks.

Designer-style sports gear is one of the raiders' main targets,' said Detective Su- perintendent Ord of the Sunderland police. 'It's valuable and costly and there's a large demand for it. There are two types of receiver of stolen goods. One's maybe a clothing retailer with a shop or a market stall, but a lot of stuff's bought by normally decent, honest people in pubs. It's part of the British culture; if there's a bargain, they'll take it.'

The company at the centre of the plun- 'Our foreign editor is accused of being a Martian agent.' der is Berghaus, a Newcastle-based, high- quality sportswear manufacturer. Their anoraks are designed for arctic weather. The guarantee comes in four different European languages, emblazoned with a photograph of an astronaut. The magic ingredient, Gortex, helps to keep men in space from getting chilly. These anoraks are seriously warm. They are also seriously expensive. The Berghaus Gemini jacket retails at a mind-blowing £309.95.

'Outdoor clothing is no longer some- thing you buy just to wear on the moun- tain,' explained Stefan Lapkowski, the public relations manager for Berghaus. 'People want it to wear on the streets.' Because these anoraks are very expensive and in demand, they've become as desir- able to thieves as their traditional spoils, compact discs and videos.

It is difficult to imagine gangs of youths preparing to risk their lives and freedom in the hell-bent pursuit of anoraks; this won- der garment, part fashion statement, part booty. 'Live fast, die young, wear an anorak,' doesn't really trip off the tongue but the outdoor industry is seriously wor- ried. To them the case is desperate.

`Mr McMurchie, the head of North- umbria police, told me, "You really have to accept that your merchandise has be- come the equivalent of robbing a jewel- ler's",' said Lapkowski plaintively. At £310 their anoraks are certainly a lot more expensive than most of the stuff in Rat- ners. Berghaus have become victims of their own success. Their merchandise is so desirable that raiders ignore everything else in the shop.

'They used to reverse a lorry through the windows and take all the Berghaus winter jackets,' said Amanda Lovegrove, who worked in the YHA Adventure Shop in Manchester. 'They left all the skis and everything else. They knew exactly what they wanted, just Berghaus jackets. There's such a market for them. The Berghaus boys we called them. We had a lot of trouble with them in Manchester. And it didn't just happen once, they did it a couple of times.'

The situation has got so tense that some retailers are refusing to stock Berghaus. Peter Coleman, the manager of Wilderness Ways in Tyneside, finally gave in after suffering three successive raids. 'We had to stop selling some expensive designers altogether, Berghaus for example, because it's a prime target,' he said earlier this year. Stefan Lapkowski pooh-poohs this idea rather nervously. 'A very few retailers have made that comment,' he said, 'but most of them are still stocking the product, though nut in prominent parts of the shop."

The last thing Berghaus wants is shop- keepers getting the idea that if they stock Berghaus they will get a GTi through the windows. But it's not just the shops that are being hit. Ram raiders have attacked the Berghaus warehouses in Newcastle. They targeted a weak point in the structure of the wall and drove at it like the clappers. Have these people got crooked chartered surveyors on their side? Berghaus has had to fortify its warehouse with concrete blocks.

The parent organisation for all camping shops (everyone is loved by someone) is Cola, the Camping and Outdoor Leisure Association. They are convinced that orga- nised crime is behind the break-ins. They are setting up a central information pool to deal with the problem. 'The information Just tends to stay with the regional police forces or insurance companies,' said Dave Brown, chairman of Cola. 'In the trade all we hear is rumour and conjecture. These raids started off a couple of years ago in the North-east, and they've got as far south as Manchester, even Liverpool. We want to see if there's a pattern.' What is it about this particular anorak that has catapulted it to fame? I nipped down to the Kensington High Street branch of the YHA Adventure Shop to try one out. Picking my way over a would-be explorer laying out Arctic sleeping bags like so many Egyptian mummies, I found myself in front of the ultimate in anoraks.

These things are built for Siberian temperatures. They are very, very warm. How cold does it get in Tyneside? How warm do they need to be? If you move a muscle in one of those things you work up a sweat like a Turkish bath.

Dave Brown lays the blame on the perennial British scapegoat, the football hooligan. 'These are extreme garments,' he said, 'but they're very useful for inactive spectator sports like watching football. They've become de rigueur on the terraces for the last couple of years. The lads see these jackets on expedition reports on television and it appeals to their macho image. Now of course they're in the news it Only makes it worse.' So the original customer for this hot anorak was a cold slob mountaineering up th.e north face of the terraces, who fancied himself as Sir Ranulph Twistleton- Wykeham-Fiennes. But now Berghaus are caught in a terrible spiral, forced out by the relentless pressure of market forces. Anor-

aks were fashionable, so professional thieves removed them for resale and profit. Ram raiding was the most efficient way to get the job done. The ram raiders wear their own goods because anoraks are in (and they've got 30 of them in the back of the van). Ram raiding is now the latest craze. Therefore people want to look like ram raiders. So they buy anoraks. Demand rises. And the ram raiders go out and nick some more.

If you're bored stiff and unemployed, it's probably very exciting to drive a Ford Cosworth through a plate-glass window. With the added attractions of vicarious glamour, making a quick buck and the unlikelihood of being caught, you can see why weak adolescents with criminal ten- dencies can get caught up. It can't be helped by the attitude of some of their relations.

The police were always harassing him,' said Alan Thompson, the 39-year-old uncle of the late Colin Atkins. 'The police could not handle the fact that Colin was the best ram raider in South Shields. They were only going that fast because the police were chasing them. They were both good quiet kids. If Colin had 50p in his pocket he would give you 25p.' Which ignores the point that he'd probably stolen the 50p in the first place.

As Detective Superintendent Ord said, 'What chance did the kid have if that's his family's attitude? He was proud that he wasn't just a kid fooling around but a professional criminal who had died in his chosen profession.'

Colin's chosen profession is inching its way down south. Two weeks ago there was a raid in Essex. It's a self-fuelling fashion- conspiracy and perhaps the only solution is a heat wave. For the moment anoraks are dead trendy; once pathetic, dark blue, matched with a college scarf, now the final word in street-cred machismo. Even John Galliano has brought out a rubberised coat. The demand for Berghaus and its imitators is enormous and ram raiding probably very profitable, but is this an anorak to die for? Colin Atkins and Dale Robson died for nothing, the ultimate fashion victims.

'I can't work out how many batteries I need.'