How long can the police hold your belongings?

[Catchingbabies]

My partner and children were in a car accident yesterday. Some of you may have seen my thread before it was removed as people actually thought I’d make this up. Anyway the car has been recovered and is now being held as evidence pending an inspection to try and determine the cause of the accident. The problem is we are not allowed access to the car until the police release the car and my partners phone is still in the car. How long are they allowed to keep your belongings for? She really needs her phone back!

Probably until they've checked she wasn't using it.

They can legally hold items of property until a criminal case has concluded, which means until it has gone through court and the person has been found innocent or guilty.

You're not going to get the phone back anytime soon. Get a new one.

So - DS had some items taken for forensic checks when he was mugged by three bloody ‘men’ (hope they get the bastards). They didn’t know how long they’d need to keep them.

Ahh that’s not good. The phone is in a bag in the boot, they will be able to determine in seconds that she wasn’t using it. I assume that means the new school shoes that are in the boot are also not likely to come back to us soon either or can the police give permission for us to take items out? When I rang the garage it’s been taken to today they said it’s being held by the police so they can’t allow us access.