Having been the unfortunate victim of equipment being stolen on numerous occasions, I naively believed that by giving the police the serial numbers and item description would hopefully allow for the equipment being returned if they ever found them.
For the record, as of to-date, I have yet to receive any stolen items back.
Today, I received a phone call from the Hampshire police asking if I could identify my equipment, I originally reported the theft to the Thames Valley police.
Well I got quite excited as I assumed all they required was proof of purchase etc.
Upon arrival the DC informed me that the equipment (mainly STIHL) were recovered from a gentleman’s garage in March near Alton and they had cause to believe that all of it were stolen and that by chance he noticed I had my last but one break in at the end of January.
So it took the police officer nearly six months to scan other police forces database for possible matches!
Unfortunately none of the items were mine so I enquired as to what would happen if they can’t find the rightful owner.
I was advised that if the police can’t prove if the items were stolen (i.e. find the rightful owner), the items have to be returned to the person they recovered them from and drop all charges.
Don’t quote me on this but I got the impression that it’s all down to how good (or more likely how much time the officer has ) to track down the owners.
Whilst it is fairly simple if the items recovered were also reported as stolen in the same area / police force but harder when across different police forces.
Reading in-between the lines, I got the impression that the onus is on the police officer who you reported the crime to make all the enquiries to other police forces , particularly within a few days of the theft being reported. Over time due to caseloads etc. Your items just become a crime reference number and sit on file.
However, you can help the police to return your items very quickly by logging all of your equipment details on the Immobilise database.
This is the sister site of the Police National Property (NMPR) database , which the public have no access to and crossed reference by all the UK police forces to aid the repatriation of stolen items.
It takes minutes to add any item and you can even log details of equipment that has already been stolen.
I would urge everyone to use this database to record all their equipment, of course you need to keep your invoices etc. In a safe place.
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