childrens' passports and birth certificates stolen

[yogabird]

all talk at the school gate is of a burgulary where lots of good stuff was left (ipods etc) and only the kids passports and birth certificates were taken. Police say they aren't going to fingerprint cos it would have been professionals and they would have worn gloves so no point. We are in a rural town where this stuff doesn't happen!! and where the police are not over-stretched. What should they do [i] the police [ii] the family [iii] my family although tbh a burgular would be hard pushed to find such a thing in our place!
Should we be worried, it keeps coming into my mind and i'm at work and must get on to other things.

God, I'd naturally assume they were coming back for the kids rather than just stealing an identity. Am I right?

oh god, that is very scary. i dont think theyll come back for THEIR kids, but maybe someone else they already have who fit the bill.

passports are very valuable .. we had ours stolen a few years ago (house break-in but they also took the laptop which we only realised 3 weeks later )

you report it to the passport people

police don't seem to catch burglars any more .. bet you get a link to victim support though ..

sorry .. they're valuable because they get sold on so that people can come into the country / travel

at least I'd assume that well before someone coming to get their kids

Agree with Twiglett. Passports are incredibly valuable. They may have been 'stolen to order' or they may just be sold on to people trying to enter the country illegally. But I think it's pretty certain they are after the identity, not the children. (DH works in this area, so have some idea about this.)

In answer to qu. iii - keep passports and birth certificates in a locked filing cabinet, preferably not together.

Agree with Twiglett - they are a commodity in their own right. Unless the police have given you reason to believe this family have been targetted I would n't make that quantum leap. Incidently when dh left our passports and ds' birth certificate on a train last year the police couldn't have cared less. Fortunately about 10 days later we recovered them from Lost and Found. Do you know the family or is this pure schoolgate hearsay btw?

my friend is v good pals with them so i think it's all true. A bit of a worry i guess we're just catching up with the rest of the country in terms of crime etc. I 've started to lock the door more often now but am still sleeping with open windows on th eground floor - too hot to do otherwise, wouldn't if dh was away though.

yoga bird,have recently had my passports stolen, are you in UK ?? If so, if you go onto the website (will try and link it) you need to download the LSO1 form, fill it in ASAP and post it first thing tomoro... this is the only way you can cancel your passports (I was disgusted you had to download a form!!! I thought with identity fraud, and with it being a childs passport also that they would do something quicker...!

hth

www.passport.gov.uk cant seem to link it just cut and paste this