The Police and lost, lost property!
Discussion
Had to smile reading this thread,have faith in the police but my 3 experiences of lost property are
1-British GP at Brands (that tells you how long ago it was !) watching from the back of the Team Lotus pits with various other friends/press/hangers on and at the end of the day there was a camera bag left with a very high end camera and some VERY nice lenses.
We spent nearly an hour going the whole of the pits and couldn't find the owner so handed it into Kent police who had a sort of temporary "pop up" station at the circuit/
Various checks over the following weeks an never claimed, Not till 2 days before the time was up then the "owner" appeared and claimed his camera bag !
2-Poped into an old red phone box in a small Norfolk market town on market day and there on the lower shelf was a wallet with just short of £150,same thing the "owner" turns up to claim his wallet with a week to go
3-Friends JPS capri gets stolen, used in various raids and partially stripped
The (very expensive) rear speakers get recovered at a later date and shown to my friend.
Even thou they match the cut out in the rear of his car,you can still see the black carpet on the threads of the fixing screws because he couldn't prove they were his 100% he wasn't allowed to have them back
1-British GP at Brands (that tells you how long ago it was !) watching from the back of the Team Lotus pits with various other friends/press/hangers on and at the end of the day there was a camera bag left with a very high end camera and some VERY nice lenses.
We spent nearly an hour going the whole of the pits and couldn't find the owner so handed it into Kent police who had a sort of temporary "pop up" station at the circuit/
Various checks over the following weeks an never claimed, Not till 2 days before the time was up then the "owner" appeared and claimed his camera bag !
2-Poped into an old red phone box in a small Norfolk market town on market day and there on the lower shelf was a wallet with just short of £150,same thing the "owner" turns up to claim his wallet with a week to go
3-Friends JPS capri gets stolen, used in various raids and partially stripped
The (very expensive) rear speakers get recovered at a later date and shown to my friend.
Even thou they match the cut out in the rear of his car,you can still see the black carpet on the threads of the fixing screws because he couldn't prove they were his 100% he wasn't allowed to have them back
LouD86 said:
I think its only fair to be honest. It wasn't claimed, and they decided to fill their pockets. All they have done realistically, if they sold it properly, is transfered the funds back to muncher, not sucked funds out of elsewhere
Surely what has happened here is we the public have paid to conceal the theft of stolen property by the police, or to conceal the inadequacy of their lost property procedures?Worth it if it results in a systemic change of behaviour but I'm not inclined to believe that otherwise OP would have more than likely have had his day in court.
All sounds like a fudge or worse
Good on you, nice result - in the end!2.5pi said:
Surely what has happened here is we the public have paid to conceal the theft of stolen property by the police, or to conceal the inadequacy of their lost property procedures?
Worth it if it results in a systemic change of behaviour but I'm not inclined to believe that otherwise OP would have more than likely have had his day in court.
All sounds like a fudge or worse
But we will be told that everything was above board & nobody did anything wrong.Worth it if it results in a systemic change of behaviour but I'm not inclined to believe that otherwise OP would have more than likely have had his day in court.
All sounds like a fudge or worse
_rubinho_ said:
Muncher said:
Just to conclude this, the police wouldn't budge, I issued proceedings, and the police's solicitors shortly afterwards made an offer to settle the claim in full plus the MCOL fee.
Great use of the public purse there; suing the police for compensation over a bicycle you never legally owned. Bravo! but someone messed up, either by accident or otherwise, why should Muncher then not have the reward for being civic minded? if you only consider the side of the argument you posted then there is now no incentive for people to hand stuff in at all. i realise that they should anyway, but some people will look at it as what's in it for me?
if you make it difficult people just won't hand anything in and others will lose out.
i'd hand it back in, and be pleased if the owner turned up, i be even more pleased if it came my way as they didn't, but i'd be royally miffed if i did the right thing and someone else got the proceeds.
I've spoken to 4 different policemen I know and all pretty much said that if you ever have any property that is either lost or stolen which finds its way into the police stores then the chances of you actually getting it back are really quite slim. One said he knows the property store is unsecured at Ipswich and there is nothing to stop anyone wandering in or out of the store with property unchallenged.
Muncher said:
I've spoken to 4 different policemen I know and all pretty much said that if you ever have any property that is either lost or stolen which finds its way into the police stores then the chances of you actually getting it back are really quite slim. One said he knows the property store is unsecured at Ipswich and there is nothing to stop anyone wandering in or out of the store with property unchallenged.
Really? So a store full of offensive weapons, drugs and evidence is left insecure?
If that's true it's outrageous!
Muncher said:
I've spoken to 4 different policemen I know and all pretty much said that if you ever have any property that is either lost or stolen which finds its way into the police stores then the chances of you actually getting it back are really quite slim. One said he knows the property store is unsecured at Ipswich and there is nothing to stop anyone wandering in or out of the store with property unchallenged.
My only experience is finding a big and very ugly gold ring in the street in Southend (picture the sort of thing a chunky geezer would wear to impressive a pub full of said geezers). I handed it in, got the receipt, no-one claimed it and Plod was happy to return it to me with a thank-you for doing my bit. Muncher said:
I was as surprised as you are!
Ours is all booked in electronically and then we have to sign it over to the property officer through a secure locked door with a hatch on it during office hours. Out of office hours the main store is locked up and impossible to get into so we have a smaller holding store that involves signing keys out of the front office safe and signing your name 10 times.It's a good thing being as there's a shed load of drugs, weapons and high value stolen property in there, I'm still amazed at the Ipswich caper!
Greendubber said:
Muncher said:
I was as surprised as you are!
Ours is all booked in electronically and then we have to sign it over to the property officer through a secure locked door with a hatch on it during office hours. Out of office hours the main store is locked up and impossible to get into so we have a smaller holding store that involves signing keys out of the front office safe and signing your name 10 times.It's a good thing being as there's a shed load of drugs, weapons and high value stolen property in there, I'm still amazed at the Ipswich caper!
I found a large collection (in plastic wallets, in a binder) of old stamps strewn across the road once, handed it into police station the next day and as it wasn't claimed, got to keep it after a few months. I've worked out there's nearly £100 of stamps at face value, wouldn't hesitate to hand property I'd found in again, as was said near the strt of the thread, you haven't lost anything if it wasn't yours to begin with.
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