Lost property blues

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 5

Lost property blues

The difficulty of tracing the owners of recovered property has been highlighted by the New Brighton police, who hold three items bearing tantalising clues. Senior-Sergeant, John Henry, said the items, while not especially valuable, will be of sentimental value to their owners. Nearly a year ago, a silver bracelet engraved with the name Javanna Kennedy was found on the New Brighton ramp. In mid-October, a gold ring was found at the Central New Brighton school. It carried the inscription “Ever yours,” followed by a Christian name. On January 18, a set of crystal glasses and a tan-

kard were found in the Bromley park toilets. They carried the words “Happy 21st Birthday — congratulations — your mate Grant.” Senior-Sergeant Henry said dealing with lost and found property was frustrating. "We get tons of reports of lost property, principally because insurance companies won’t action claims from clients until the theft or loss has been reported to the police. “In nine cases out of 10, this is a complete waste of time as far as we are concerned. Many of the incidents reported are several months old when reported to us and unless there is some identifying mark on the property then we cannot enter the

description into the property sub-system of our computer.” He said checking identifying marks, such as serial numbers, was rarely successful. The police then check lost property reports. “This is a huge job and generally the success rate is minimal.” Recovered property worth less than $5O is held for a month; items of greater value are kept two months. They are then usually returned to the finder if they want it, auctioned or destroyed. “It is very frustrating really. We know the property belongs to someone, but we do not know who, so it gets disposed of.” Senior-Sergeant Henry advised anyone losing

property to advertise in the newspaper. The police station nearest to where the loss occurred should be checked within a week of the loss and again just before a month is up. Other police stations in the city should be telephoned. “It is perhaps worthy of consideration by some major firm, possibly a security firm, to consider setting up a lost and found property bureau and remove this reponsibility from the police altogether.” He said the amount of work involved in trying to match lost and found property reports and the poor success rate, meant the police could not justify spending a lot of time on the task.