General Chat

It did not hit the news when it was stolen because trailers are being stolen all the time.

What made it newsworthy was the inability to return it to it's owners.

Just about to watch cars cops and criminals on sky 109..............it is going to show a bit about caravan theft and recovery by the look of it.

Will let you know what happens :-)

Caravans have a serial number on windows and they are on a database. All of them since 1998 have microchips.

A man who paid £6000 for his has just had it taken by the police and it has been towed away to be returned to the owner or insurance company.

The man is very upset as he had to empty all his possessions and watch it being towed away from the steam rally he was attending.

Another one which was identified by the number on the window has been taken as well.

Both owners bought the caravans in good faith and paid good money for them.

All of this makes this current case more unfair on the legitimate owners :-| :-|

AH!

the RRr strikes again...........
like I said this race of people are very hard to reason with........allegedly

and my wrist is well n truly slapped!!

what the police mean is
they cant be bothered to do their job right :-D

Or they think they might meet opposition and can't afford the manpower to recover it safely..............one law for some and another for the rest of us :-| :-|

if somebody offered anybody 30 grands
worth of property for 300 quid

they would know it was knocked off :-(

ask no questions...........hear no lies..........

Like the lad that allegedly nicked the violin, offered it for sale for £100
was worth 1.2 million........but I dont suppose that he realised that........

It is not and never has been the duty of the police to spend their time recovering stolen property. If they come across such during their duty of enforcing the law fair enough (*) otherwise those suffering loss have the options of claiming on insurance or resorting to the courts and ultimately enforcement action by a High Court sheriff.

If the courts don't please then another option is a loss adjuster who will sort things for a fairly serious fee.

Since the founding of the police by Robert Peel this has been the case. The very good reason is that if the police had recovering stolen property as one of their main tasks they would need a small army. It just is not practicable. Moreover the police do not have the skills and systems for systematic recovery of stolen property still less the budget.

Not buying insurance is foolish.

(*) In which case they may retain it as evidence for months. They have a big London multi storey car park full of expensive stolen motors.

Our van has the number on the windows on a 30 grand van new replacement windows wouldn't worry some replace and visible number gone,,,I think maybe reprisal against true owners and police maybe the worry,just think of how many officers needed to seize the van and at 26ft a large engine car will be needed to tow it

Having been an officer who has been on numerous travellers sites in the past, I do find this and other stories hard to believe at times.

I know there are officers who are reluctant to 'make the effort' so to speak when dealing with travellers/itinerants because of the agro but what about the rights of the decent hard working people in our communities.

I've just been discussing this with my hubby who retired after 30 years and his opinion was the same as mine. We would have arrested the travellers and seized the caravan as evidence. They would have been arrested on suspicion of theft but had they been charged it would most likely have been for handling stolen goods. Had it been necessary, social services would have been contacted regarding the children who were living in the caravan.

Hubby and I attended one incident where travellers had just parked several caravans on private land. Legally we couldn't force them off but after using persuasive communications skills they agreed to move. To say the owner of the land was happy is an understatement.

Recovering stolen property is part and parcel of police work, it becomes your exhibit and is further evidence of offences being committed. This is why, depending on the reason for arrest, following an arrest a suspects home is usually searched.

In my opinion, and I know there are many who share it, too much importance is put on the human rights of the offender and very little consideration for the human rights of the victims of crime.

Chris

My sentiments entirely Chris.

The chap who drove out of a side street without stopping recently and knocked my partner off his bike, and across the bonnet of the car to the ground, said he didn't see him. Partner had lights on his bike ans was wearing a high vis jacket with silvery stripes on the arms and sides.

Police came and ambulance, and paramedic asked o.h. if he wanted to go to hospital. He was shocked and, he thought, bruised and just wanted to get home, so he said no. The driver told the police he would pay for a new bike, admitted to my partner and police that he just hadn't seen partner on his bike. The police man called me and gave me the drivers details but said as there were no witnesses or cctv they couldn't charge him with driving without due care and attention or whatever so nothing would be done. They did take a statement from him at the scene but not my partner. The policeman told me he was not available for a week as he was going away on hols but if I needed him for anything to call afterwards.

The following day I took partner to the hospital as he was so sore, he had xrays and they confirmed just bruising. Later in the week just before we were due to et off on hols, A & E called to say they had rechecked the xrays and there was damage to the bone in partner's thumb, it had to be strapped rigid and would take 4 to 6 weeks to heal. We had to cancel our holiday.

We went back to the hospital to get his thumb strapped properly and to see how to do it and I saw a policeman so I asked if 'our' policeman was back from hols. He asked why and I told him things were different now that o.h. was more seriously injured and our hols cancelled. I said Did the other policeman not take more action because he was going away, but the chap said No he's not that sort of cop. He passed on our details and the female policewoman who took the driver's statement on the night, came round and got a statement from partner. It now rests with the Traffic police section whether or not the driver will be charged.

To me, it still seems wrong that he wasn't charged at once or reported for the accident, and I am suspicious that it was because the policeman wanted to get home and not have his holiday delayed. Paperwork might have held him up.

I suppose there will always be good cops and not so good ones.

Lizx

Hi Liz,

Sorry to hear about your oh's accident.

It seems some forces (maybe the majority) have a policy whereby if an accident does not result in any injuries then they do not prosecute the offending driver.The force I worked for is the same. The insurance companies pursue the other driver so that there is no financial loss. In the circumstances you describe where a driver pulls out of a side road into the major road and collides with a vehicle on the major road, there is an obvious driving without due care and attention.

Unless it's changed, an officer would advise the innocent party that it's force policy not to prosecute as there are no injuries and are they happy with that. Many years ago every accident, regardless of circumstances would result in a prosecution. This was very time consuming for the officers and very expensive. The majority of non-injury accidents are deemed not to be in the public interest to prosecute.

As an officer has 6 months in which to report and summons an offending driver, the fact that the officer dealing with your oh's accident was going on holiday would not be the reason why he did not report the other driver at the time.

It's true that there are some officers who will go the extra mile when dealing with incidents and there are those who will do the bare minimum or even less than they should, I know as I've worked with some.

Hope your oh's injury is healing well.

Chris x