Apparently two things which put off these kinds of people are dogs and ADT alarms as the chances are an ADT alarm is connected to the police.
From what I've seen they couldn't care less about cameras. I had two cameras and a bright spotlight at the front of my last house and when the thief who broke into my car saw the spotlight turn off he turned off the torch on his phone. It helped him.
Sorry to hear about your neighbour, especially the tap.