Found a freshly stolen motorcycle. What to do?

[CC07 PEU]

This evening I found a stolen motorcycle. It was only reported earlier today. I tried contacting the owner via his Facebook stolen bike report. Dialling 101 was a waste of time to report it to the police as there was a massive wait! Is there anything else I can do to ensure it gets back to its owner before someone arrives in a van overnight to remove it?

[ashleyman]

Steal it back and hide it until you can find the owner / Police?

[road_rager]

can you move it somewhere safe/out of the way?

[CC07 PEU]

I'd be worried about being caught handling stolen property...

[myvision]

If you can't move it put some locks on it to slow them down if they come back for it.

[CC07 PEU]

I finally got through to 101 last night and reported the discovery to them. Via social media I was also able to let the owner know of its whereabouts.

If I had a spare lock I'd put it on this bike but they're all on my own bike.

[curlie467]

You've done all you can, well done but don't worry about it.

[CC07 PEU]

It got recovered by the insurance company this morning and is on its way back to the rightful owner

[Ho Lee Kau]

CC07 PEU said:

It got recovered by the insurance company this morning and is on its way back to the rightful owner

[elanfan]

Out of interest how did you know it was stolen and who it belonged to?

[Fire99]

Ho Lee Kau said:

CC07 PEU said:

It got recovered by the insurance company this morning and is on its way back to the rightful owner

[robbocop33]

elanfan said:

Out of interest how did you know it was stolen and who it belonged to?

There, case solved! It was the OP that dunnit guv!
I've found a stolen bike before, newish bike lying on side in an odd place, pretty obvious, go onto facebook and say you've found it, or go on facebook to see if someone's saying their bikes stolen? Their name will be right there, it's brilliant t'internet! :-)

[CC07 PEU]

robbocop33 said:

There, case solved! It was the OP that dunnit guv!
I've found a stolen bike before, newish bike lying on side in an odd place, pretty obvious, go onto facebook and say you've found it, or go on facebook to see if someone's saying their bikes stolen? Their name will be right there, it's brilliant t'internet! :-)

That was more or less it! I returned home last night to find a three month old bike parked in our residents' parking area. I wasn't familiar with who it belonged to and the fact it was sitting there with no security devices attached looked suspicious. I did a search on Facebook to see if it had been reported stolen. Lo and behold, there it was, reported by the owner only two hours earlier so that's how I got in touch with the owner. So yes, the internet and social media can be quite powerful.

[HughiusMaximus]

Good work!

I'm sure the owner appreciated your efforts to help.

[airsafari87]

ashleyman said:

Steal it back and hide it until you can find the owner / Police?

Well done OP. One of the very few good things about soshul media.

In relation to the quote above.

Say the OP or anyone else for that matter. Did `steal' back a bike they know to be already stolen

Assuming the OP / we called the cops and managed to message the owner of the bike on Facebook or wherever, Disclose our full details and let them know exactly where we had taken and hidden the bike.

Where would this leave us legally?

I would like to think that common sense would prevail in a situation like this and nothing would happen.

I guess the only real place you would leave yourself exposed is if the bike had been damaged in some way during the theft and the owner of the bike was a bit of an arse and wanted to claim against you for damaging their bike while you recovered it?