Stolen property - any ideas what I can do here?

[BigbreastsBiggerbeard]

Last week I had something stolen from a local shop. I reported it to police and of course, to the shop. I was told that there was CCTV in the shop but access was restricted to the shop owner. The CCTV has still not been checked.

Today I received a letter from the police saying that as there are "...no further lines of enquiry..." the crime report will be closed. I rang them and explained that the CCTV has still not been checked. I was told that it would be passed on to someone for further consideration.

I was hoping, in the first instance, that the police would request access to the CCTV, but they clearly have bigger fish to fry (which is understandable to a great degree). What was particulary galling was when I initially reported it I was told that even if someone tried to hand in my stolen property, they don't accept property anymore!!

I'm struggling to know what to do here. The person/s who stole my property may well be captured on CCTV but there's no way of knowing, as the shop owner seems in no rush to check this. What the hell can I do in this situation?

search your self on Gumtree, ebay, facebook selling site. What is it that was stolen?

Even if you do get the the police won't do anything. I dropped my phone in a shop once. My eldest was a baby in a pram I bent down to get something from under the pram and my phone fell out without me realising. Went back to the shop and they were very helpfu l , helped look for it. No sign so got the cctv. It showed two women picking it up ! Went to the police station even said I h ad cctv and they told me they were not interested. (Got the phon e back in the end as the lady called my dad)

Confused - my bag and contents, including laptop. Thankfully not a very expensive one, but still....

Butterfly - glad to hear you got your phone back. Yes, the police didn't seem particularly interested.

You got your phone back so there was no crime.
No crime means no call for police.
Police used to have warehouses full of lost property. Cost a fortune in rent.

Buster - are you talking to Butterfly?

I went to the police before getting my phone back if that was aimed at me buster. I literally went after seeing the cctv footage as at that point it appeared it was just stolen (they didn t han d it into the police station literally 5 mins away or the shop) I had called the phone numerous time s as did my dad to no avail. So my point was even with cctv the police weren't interested. It was that night (after going to the police station) that the ladies daughter called my dad as she was apparently waiting for her daughter to come home.

I don't think the police are interested in theft unless you were mugged or something .so not if you left it somewhere or they got it from your pram for example. How did they get your bag?

You need to just make a fuss OP - the police are obliged to investigate a crime and you have evidence. There is a lot of evidence from other countries that cracking down on low level crime reduces other crime, so its important people do.

How infuriating and unfair. You'd think the shop owner would be happy to co operate too. Could you approach them for the cctv yourself or is that not allowed?
Slightly different but our cctv recently caught our neighbours car being stolen during the night. We checked it after police leafletted our area wanting information. We rang them and told them we had clear footage of the whole thing, including them attempting to break into several cars and houses along the street. They haven't even called us back.

A lady's purse was taken in a local shop. The shop owner put the cctv footage on the local Facebook page to see whether anyone recognised her the person taking it. I don't know what the outcome was but I would see whether the shop owner will help you.

The problem is the shop owner is never in the place. It's just the regular staff. I spoke to a family member of the owner and he took all my details, but so far, no contact. He also told me that even if something was found on the CCTV, they wouldn't be able to tell me anything at all, it would have to go to the police. Data protection.

I will keep pursuing this, obviously, but I'm not at all impressed with them.

Keepingbees - I've asked the staff numerous times if the CCTV has been checked and they don't know. They can't access it as it's in a locked box. I would LOVE to speak to the owner but there's no way as yet of contacting him, I'm having to wait until he contacts me. I'm hoping that as a result of speaking to the police today, they may pursue the owner.

The problem for the police is they are so strapped for resources they cannot justify those investigations where there is no realistic likelihood of prosecution. Even if there is cctv, the chance that the suspect will be seen committing the offence, a good clear facial image obtained, and that suspect then being known to police and identifiable is actually incredibly low. If the shop owner sends in a decent image to police after trawling cctv they will investigate but the police will have the same problems you have had OP getting hold of the owner. They just don't have time to keep chasing when there is no realistic chance of identifying a suspect. And for a big city this type of crime is in the 100s every day.
It's incredibly frustrating but have you seen police budget cuts?

This happened to me a couple of months ago. I was targeted in a shoe shop whilst trying on boots.
Once you have reported to the police and have a crime no, the shop have to look at the cctv.
In my case, the shop manager told me, that he could not see my purse being taken from my bag. However, the police woman who dealt with my case, told me that she could very clearly see the purse being taken when viewing the cctv.
Sadly i never got my purse back. i do sometimes check on eBay and gumtree hoping it will come up for sale.

Chasing up cctv can take ages in my experience, and that is with a helpful cctv provider. Chances are that even with the cctv in their possession the police may be too busy to check it in a timely manner. The shop cctv could be really pixelated and basic too, so a clear image of the suspect may be non existent. You say ‘local shop’ so I’m assuming that means corner shop/off license rather than a high street chain? In those smaller shops cctv isn’t distributed as well as you may think, there’s probably cctv at the door/tills but there probably isn’t as much coverage of the rest of the store. It all depends on the location of the cameras so the theft may not actually have been picked up.

I’m sorry that you went through this and lost your bag & laptop hopefully the police get a lead

Under GDPR it is unlikely that you can be allowed access to the CCTV footage. I suspect the shop won't have formal policies in place though.

Ihasting - it was actually a local coffee chain. I was trying to make it vague but sod it, I don't care. Still no contact from owner, so contacted head office for the chain who managed to get hold of him. He said he would phone me today. He didn't. Head office told me to give him today, and then ring them again tomorrow if has hasn't called me.

There is definitely CCTV at the place I was.

expatmigrant - Despite having a crime number and giving this to a relative of the cafe owner, this has clearly made no impact at all. The police didn't seem to think he was under any obligation to check it. I'm sorry to hear you didn't get your purse back; they are bastards.

snowpo - yes, you're right. In the grand scheme of things, this is very minor.

I am utterly unimpressed.

I'm fully aware that I won't get my belongings back, and no-one will be prosecuted. My main gripe now is that the cafe owner has shown no concern or willingness to help. And who knows, if someone IS identifiable and who knows, comes in on a regular basis (unlikely, I know!) then that would be helpful for the staff to be aware of.

Hey ho, it's a lesson learned