My point Geraint is... If they have bumped the locks to gain access, the owner wouldn't know and this couldn't be proved.
As far as I'm concerned, the law should state that these squatters are there illegally. Thing is ,, it doesn't !!!! This is where the law lets owners down. As others have already pointed out, this is the area where the law is totally inadequate.
At the end of the day, they are still stealing the property owners electricity and gas (unless they have already phoned the supply company and given them their name and changed the supply into their own names. (which somehow I doubt very much) If they have , they have probably used the owners landline to do this (again this is theft).
The law really does need changing. These people should be able to be forcibly removed as soon as the police arrive (preferably with armed police backup. (armed with iron bars, baseball bats, etc)) Chuck these squatters out on the street, arrest them for theft of the owners electricity, and gas phone etc then lock them up until they can be deported back to the country they originate from.
Any other country within Europe would do this in an instant.
Forget European Law and chuck them out. Forget about the European Convention on Human Rights and do to them what France and other countries do to immigrants.
I know what I'd do to some squatters if I came back from the shops to found them chucking my possessions out of my house , claiming that they lived there, Irrespective of the law. It personally wouldn't bother me, and I bet it wouldn't bother a lot of right minded British people either.
This country has been far too soft for far too long on immigrants, who break the law (and don't try to tell me that squatting in someone's house when they have gone down the shops is legal)