Martin wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:32:55 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:

Martin wrote:
On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:19:59 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:

Martin wrote:
[...]
It really makes you wonder what the police are for.

Well, OK then: what do you want them to do? I haven't heard that
anybody's committed a crime.

All those who took stuff from the wreck without completing a form
committed a crime.

No, as I understand it, you get 28 days to submit the form. I don't
think the Receiver of Wreck stands there on the beach holding his
hand out. The only thing that makes this incident different from
daily occurrences up and down our coast seems to me to be the scale.

So with zero police action who is going to know who didn't fill in a
form when the 28 days are up?

Luckily, even in this country it isn't a police responsibility to ensure
we fill in civil service forms. This really is more complicated than it
may look. No breaking and entering, no breach of the peace, nothing like
that: just an awful lot of lost property with no immediately
identifiable owners. Lost property, come to that, which will probably be
valueless after the next tide if somebody doesn't "kindly rescue" it.


How about being in the possession of an unimported untaxed vehicle
with no proof of ownership?

That sounds quite promising; but I suppose the salvage rules apply to
motor vehicles as to anything else. Even wheeling it down a public road
with no tax wouldn't actually be arrestable; and I'm sure the bikes were
all safely on other vehicles. I really don't envy the police in
situations like this: it doesn't make them look particularly good from
one point of view, but they'd look worse if they started getting
officious.

--
Mike.



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