Liverpool thieves might have tried to “come in through the bathroom,” er, back door window of a local Blacks one early morning in August 2006, but luckily for the outdoor equipment shop, an American man was “looking through” a live webcam at precisely the right time.
The Beatles fan from Texas was utilizing a feature of a local street festival celebrating the Fab Four when he inadvertently became a member of Liverpool’s City Watch over 5,000 miles away.
How an American Man Helped Catch Liverpool Thieves
Although stationary webcam feeds are still popular in some corners of the internet today, social media livestreaming has dulled the sparkle of the more outdated technology. But back in the 2000s, these webcam feeds were still relatively novel and a fun way for different parts of the globe to connect with one another. In the early morning of August 21, 2006, that included linking an unassuming man in Texas with a pair of ne’er-do-wells in Liverpool thousands of miles away.
The anonymous Beatles fan logged onto a website that displayed a live webcam feed of Mathew Street, the area of Liverpool that houses the Cavern Club, a regular spot for the Fab Four in their early years. Liverpool’s annual Mathew Street Festival was taking place around this time, and the American man undoubtedly wanted to peek at what life might be like in the Beatles’ old stomping grounds as the city’s residents celebrated the band decades later.
What the American man likely didn’t expect to find were three men propping up a ladder against an outdoor equipment store, smashing a back window, and crawling inside. Realizing he was witnessing a robbery, the man called the Merseyside police, which we could only assume sounded like a prank call at first.
“We did get a call from someone in Dallas who was watching on a Webcam that looks into the tourist areas, of which Mathew Street is one because of all the Beatles stuff,” a Merseyside Police representative told NBC News. “He called directly through to police here.” Officers went to the scene and arrested three suspects.
The Beatles’ Hometown Festival Was Later Cancelled
The Mathew Street Festival that prompted the live webcam feed was, ironically, cancelled years later due to complaints from local residents. What started as a single stage outside the famous Cavern Club turned into a massive affair with thousands of attendees, multiple stages, and a lot of booze. Liverpudlians unhappy with the annual celebration called it a “glorified p***-up that does not showcase the best of the city,” per The Liverpool Echo.
The city cancelled the festival in 2007, the year after a Beatles fan from Dallas, Texas, called in to report a crime he watched happen in real-time via the Mathew St. webcam. A public campaign revitalized the festival until it finally evolved into the Liverpool International Music Festival in Sefton Park, where managing festival logistics was easier.
Still, for a brief moment in 2006, the downtown location of the Mathew St. festival was what helped thwart a group of Liverpool thieves, thanks to an American man who was “keeping an eye on the world going by [his] window.”
Photo by Julian Hamilton/Mirrorpix/Getty Images