So which laws allow them to steal stuff in front of your face and keep it even when police know where it is, shoplift a large anount of goods with kids and get away with it, fly tip at every site they 'travel' to, push over Portaloos that have been provided by the local council for them and defecate in the gardens of people they don't like? Any idea what laws protect them and how can they be amended?
They are a protected minority group which the EU protects. Apparently it's not just the UK police that can't touch them; other EU countries have the same problem.
Minority group + extremely violent = pretty much above the law.
Just look at the ... ahem ... "middle-eastern" child rapists that the police knew about but didn't want to go after for fear of being called "racists".
None of this means the police are choosing not to prosecute offences purely due to membership of a minority group.
Except, you know, when that's exactly what they are doing, and even admit that they're doing, to members of the public who have asked them for help (normally to recover their stuff).
In which case arrest them all. Punish them all. Keep punishing them and then see if they keep doing it. I bet after a while they get tired of getting fined or jailed.
Sod the EU and its stupid protection for these ass clowns. I'd send in the army. They want to get violent? Shoot them. Otherwise round them up and detain them. Sod their human rights. We all know that 99% of their stuff and 99% of their income will be stolen/obtained by fraud/menaces. I have as much sympathy for their human rights as the ISIS "Beatles" who are now crying about their treatment and lack of a fair trial. Boo hoo hoo, my heart bleeds.
Burn their houses and caravans down while they are out doing this.
They don't own anything

Their caravans are all stolen, and they don't live in houses except when the council provide them free of charge (because they're brazen enough to put themselves on a waiting list for free housing whilst they rob the area blind).
But yes, the Guardian and its readership will cry themselves to sleep if we actually stood up for law and order and gave these idiots a dose of the own medicine. "Somebody think of the children/human rights! Society has failed them! They would be fine upstanding scientists, lawyers and priests if we weren't all so RACIST against them!"
**** the Guardian and all who sail in her.