Are you one of the 506 people whose phone is in police lost property?

Thursday 30 July 2015

Some people lose their phones. Some people lose their wallets. And some people in Jersey lose things like inflatable sharks, large bronze sculptures of sheep and a set of false teeth!

Those are just some of the items that landed up in the police’s lost property room in 2014.

And now, the police have launched a new online system for people to report lost property, in the hope that they can reunite some of these weird and wonderful belongings with their owners – and clear out some space at police headquarters.

The full list of items handed in last year includes 506 mobile phones, 583 wallets, 471 items of jewellery and 135 pairs of glasses. And that’s before you get to sharks, sheep, hearing aids, fishing rods, pressure washers, swords, Chinese figurines and false teeth!

Inspector Paul Smith – who has been with the police for 21 years – said that they hoped the new website would be easy for people to use.

“We deal with just over 2,700 items per year of every imaginable shape and size,” he said.

“It ranges from things of no monetary value but potential huge sentimental value, to items of very clear monetary value.

“We’re trying to make the whole reporting system as efficient and easy as possible.

“Some of these items are found, and a lot are handed in to us. When we get lost property we want nothing more than to return it to its rightful owner, and it’s nice to make contact with the person who handed it back to.

“Wallets and purses are not too bad because you can do research and try to link them up as quickly as possible, and we check items with UV light to look for security marking.”