Anyone from Northolt?

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 ;)