AIBU to wonder about whether to go to the police with sunglasses?

[Starryskiesinthesky]

Found a pair of rayban sunglasses today. They were in the middle of the road in their case.

It looked like they had fallen out of a car or someone had been crossing the road and dropped them.

So, I was planning to hand them in to the police lost property whereas my son (age 13) wants them for himself.

What should i do?!

Hand them in, and ask them to be returned to you if they are not claimed.

were they in a pouch does it have a name in it?

Hand them in! If they were your son's and he'd lost them, what would you/he want to happen?

They are in a puch but nothing to identify them. Yes, i will definitely hand them in I just wasn’t sure if they are unclaimed if you get to keep them. I want my son to learn the right thing to do!

If you have an active local FB group- then that's possibly your best bet to reunite them with their owner.

I wondered about FB but we live in the suburbs of capital city and I found them in the city centre so doubt my FB would be far reaching. There is a central police lost property service but looking it up tonight yields more about claiming items than how to hand something in. Will phone tomorrow and see what they say.

I took a purse with quite a lot if money into the police once. It became all mine after it remained unclaimed.

You can hand them in to the police at any station, they give you a receipt and after 60 days if the item is unclaimed you can go claim it. We once found a stack of Tesco gift cards in the street, handed them in and claimed them back after I did some crazy Google searching about 'finders keepers rules'. I am in Scotland though, so maybe there's different rules in England.

Not sure if other forces are the same but the Met no longer take in unidentifiable lost property. Might be worth checking website before you go to a station.

I dropped my purse two weeks ago - it had almost £100 in it. I am extremely grateful that someone found it and handed it to the police. I cannot imagine why this would not be the right thing to do

I am in Scotland too.

I thought most police stations weren't taking lost property any more. Would they really be interested in holding a pair of sun glasses?

Having said that it's an awful idea to just hand them over to your 13 year old son.

At least let him see you going through the motions on something like FB in order to try to find the owner. Then perhaps when he sees you've done your best to reunite them with the owner and they're not claimed after a couple of weeks let him have them.

Should have said, I would definitely try to hand them into a police station. So he knows that you can't just keep someone's lost stuff.

I think it would class as 'theft by finding' if you don't hand it in.

Thanks everyone. I knew i should try and you have absolutely confirmed my belief in this! I think nowadays people dont expect honesty / the same handing in of lost property so i just wanted to check but really knew what was right.

My we was quite young my ds and dp found some old binoculars on the pavement. They handed them at our local police station. A few days later the owner called at our house with a thank you card and £20 for my ds. Turned out the binoculars were old but had sentimental value to the owner. It was a great first lesson for my young ds that honesty pays.

I once left my purse and my sunglasses on Hampstead Heath

It totally confirmed my faith in human nature that both were handed in. That was totally lovely of the person who handed them in and I asked the police for their name and address and sent them some flowers and an M&S voucher.

It's lovely when people do the right thing

ArnoldBee I did the same and the owner claimed the purse (she’d taken out two months rent for her new property and would have been homeless if it hadn’t been found) and posted me boots gift vouchers as a thank you 😊