'Cheap thief' caught on CCTV 'stealing' Range Rover part - before returning it with apology note signed 'The Bandit'

A husband and wife say they have been left 'unnerved' after a part on their Range Rover car was 'stolen' - before it was returned alongside a bizarre note from the 'bandit'.

Joey Garofalo, 57, was returning from his shift as a Metrolink driver to his home in Rochdale when he noticed a part of plastic trim on his black car was missing. He says he looked through the CCTV footage taken on cameras outside his home, finding someone in a white Range Rover 'doing laps', before hopping out and appearing to take the trim.

Joey reported the incident to the police and posted the footage on social media. Shortly after, Joey says the trim was returned along with an apology note from a man claiming he was driving his wife's car, and did not want her to know the trim on her car had itself been stolen previously.

The note suggested that while the self-titled 'bandit' was stressed after the trim on his wife's car was stolen, Joey's car was 'the first one I came across' that was the same model and year. The bandit said 'I thought I'd borrow yours', promising he 'was going to return it at the weekend but due to getting caught via CCTV I have returned it now'.

“I’d done a day’s work, I came home and thought ‘has my car been in a crash? Where is the bit that’s fallen off?’" Joey told the Manchester Evening News.

“The answer was that in the night, someone came along and stole the plastic trim above the wheel arch on my Range Rover Evoque.

“I saw on my CCTV that there was a white Range Rover Evoque that was driving past my car in the night, it did a couple of laps.”

In the CCTV footage, recorded just before 11pm on Sunday night (January 19), a hooded figure then appears to walk past, 'pretend to tie his shoe lace' and begin to take the