A SCHEME to stamp out car radio thefts has been launched on Teesside.

Cleveland Police decided to take action against the crime after more than 2,500 vehicles were broken into in the area in the past nine months - with only the car stereo being stolen in 850 cases.

Officers teamed up with George Kane, a local garage owner, to permanently engrave the outer metal casing of stereos with car registration numbers or postcodes, making it harder for thieves to sell them.

Sergeant Glynn Bass, the crime prevention officer behind the scheme, said: "Because the car stereos are not marked at the manufacturing stage, we are trying to address what, in my opinion, amounts to a serious design fault.

"At the moment, even if we recover stolen stereos, we usually end up giving them back to the thieves, because we can't identify the rightful owners."

Under the scheme, motorists who live or work in, or who visit Middlesbrough, are being encouraged to get their radios etched for a fee of £1.

They will be given a free, bright yellow sticker, which says: "Stereo permanently marked by Cleveland Police", to display on the window of their car.