Ok so why can’t Police just go into someone’s house and get your AirPods back even though they’re shown in that house on find my iPhone?! 👀
It comes down to legislation. 📚
So the offence is likely to be contrary to Section 1 of the Theft Act 1968. 👀
Theft is defined as; ‘Dishonestly Appropriating Property Belonging To Another With The Intention To Permanently Deprive.’ 🤓
Sounds complicated doesn’t it? 🤯
Essentially if you lend a friend a ladder, you think they aren’t going to give it back, but you haven’t asked them, is that theft? No. Because we don’t know their intention. If they say of course you can have it back come and get it, that’s not theft unsurprisingly. 🪜
But if they ignore you, or say no you can’t have it back, now we have theft, because they have taken control of your property dishonestly and aren’t going to give it back, so they’ve appropriated it.
Or in the example given you’ve been out and about and someone’s taken your AirPods out of your bag dishonestly and appropriated them with the intention of keeping them, theft is complete. 🕵🏻♀️
Now let’s talk about powers of entry. Probable cause btw, is a US 🇺🇸 term. In the UK we use S17 PACE - it gives Cops a power to enter a property to save life or limb and to prevent damage to the property. It also gives us a power of entry to search for persons wanted for certain offences, such as cruelty to children, animals and people who are suspected of having been drink driving. If you look up S17 PACE on
legislation.gov you can read it in full.
It doesn’t however give us a power of entry to search for stolen property. We can knock on the door and ask permission to come in, but we do *not* have a power to enter. Frustrating huh?
Unfortunately most properties are also sub divided in London, which causes further issues of where exactly stolen or lost property is ‘pinging’ on an app.
So that’s why even though your AirPods are showing inside an address Police Officers are hampered by legislation. 🤷🏼♂️
I hope that explains the offence and why we can’t do what we’d like to do.
#ThinBlueLine 🚨