Anyone from Northolt?

Longest shot in the history of longshots......!!

Anyone from Northolt and know someone called Joseph Harris who recently returned from Thailand?

He picked up my son's girlfriend's identical baggage at Heathrow airport before NYE.

There was an air tag in the bag and we followed it to a block of flats in Northolt. It has since been deactivated.

Apparently the airport won't release his bag until he returns hers but he hasn't been in touch. She can obviously claim on insurance but there were a few sentimental things that she is upset at losing.

May be get the authorities involved, technically its theft if he is in position of property he knows isn't his with out permission. Esp as you know where he likely lives.

Police said contact airline, airline said contact police!

Considering its a criminal event, police are under obligation. Perhaps then the airline could be able to pass more details to police, to find the guy.

In an ideal world yes, but this is the underfunded British police who won't come out if you have been burgled and know the burglar.

For example:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67861416

Considering its a criminal event

It isn’t it, it’s not theft, it’s picking a bag up by mistake . No dishonest appropriation nor intention to permanently deprive

No dishonest appropriation nor intention to permanently deprive

If you're not making any effort to return the thing you have taken that is not yours, you are permanently depriving the person you know to be the rightful owner.

Theft is
(1)A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.

So there has to be dishonest appropriation with the intention to permanently deprive. Picking the wrong bag up isn’t that - you haven’t got dishonest appropriation, let alone that with intent to deprive.

Have you checked the Electoral Roll to see if you can identify his flat number?

So if take something with the intention returning it at later date, in effect borrowing it with out permission, as its not permanently depriving the rightful owner.
That's not theft?

Apologise for the derailing, but this is clearly theft, as the custodian consciously holding items belonging to another with out reason or permission, and no effort to return infact the opposite in disabling the airtag.

no dishonesty at the point of picking up the bag up, but once home and realised not his, and no effort made to return it i.e assuming ownership, is it not then dishonestly appropriated?

no effort made to return it i.e assuming ownership,

consciously holding items belonging to another with out reason or
permission, and no effort to return infact the opposite in disabling
the airtag

You know that how exactly; they may have made efforts which failed and thought fuck it don’t know what to do I’ll leave it in the corner till someone contacts me or I’ll chuck it out now as it’s been a week and no one has been in touch.

Not sure where the AirTag was disabled by Mr Northolt came from just is stopped sending a signal, could be a number of reasons for that.

So if take something with the intention returning it at later date, in effect borrowing it with out permission, as its not permanently depriving the rightful owner.
That's not theft?

Correct, taking without consent is the charge for stealing cars when you just dump it later. He hasn’t afaik borrowed it, it s a simple mistake the type of which happens often (something happened to my sister and brother in law returning from world tour trip, fortunately it was a type of bag issued to boot necks so the guy was happy to assist). In the great Northolt caper you’re going to struggle to show theft and it was me I’d just go and knock on some doors in the block rather and use some soft people skills, more so that unless the police know Mr Northolt they’re unlikely to know which flat he lives in either.

Who knew the middle class, urban elite, LFGSSers were so keen on criminalising people ;)

knock on some doors
They did this on the evening. They managed to get let into the lobby and rang some bells but nobody knew him. To be honest, if some random person was asking me if I knew if he lived there, I would probably say no.

That’s a shame, you’d hope the air carrier would at least pass on a message to him, no skin off their nose and no Gdpr bollocks to get hung up,on