Thin grey line: Pensioners armed with spy cameras take on gang of drug dealers... and win | Mail Online

Thin grey line: Pensioners armed with spy cameras take on gang of drug dealers... and win | Mail Online: "When gangs of drug dealers and yobs descended on the streets of a small community, most residents decided it was best to keep out of their way.

But a group of fearless pensioners refused to bow to intimidation and have started a fightback against the crime ruining their area.

Armed with £15,000 of the latest surveillance and night vision equipment, they covertly film criminals going about their business and then pass the images on to police.

The group of 11 - aged between 67 and 92 - claim to have helped catch more than 100 criminals on the Highfields estate in Leicestershire using CCTV and long-range cameras.

The elderly team spend their days drawing up hit-lists of drug dealers during clandestine tea meetings and naming and shaming criminals on social networking websites.

Spokesman Albert Berer said the pensioners, known as the St Peter’s Neighbourhood Monitoring group, were determined not to let yobs and criminals take over their estate.

‘We are not your typical ‘twitching net curtain’ neighbourhood watch - we mean business,’ he said.

‘All the group, apart from myself, is made up of retired elderly people, who are scared out of their wits about what is happening in their neighbourhood.

‘We literally cannot go out at night because of hooded louts causing mayhem outside our front doors, along our walkways and on our streets.’

He said the group planned highly-detailed missions to pinpoint and catch the criminals who plagued the area.

Four of the team do most of the filming.

‘Often we sit around the table with a cup of tea drawing up a hit list of which drug dealers we are going to target next,’ he said.