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@Tea_Bee
You know how it goes... as soon as the first bit leaves the bike, that's it - the bike's got the mark and it's only a matter of waiting for it to slowly decay, with parts disappearing nightly. It can sit happily for weeks, but once the first bit gets nicked, it's doomed.
The way I see it, you may as well "liberate" it, hand it into the police saying you found it with the lock broken - thief must've been disturbed and run off (minor fib but I've genuinely found a bike in that state before). In 4 weeks it's yours legally. You can leave a note, in case the rightful owner comes by, in which case you saved their ride from suffering the death-of-a-thousand-cuts. If they don't come by and claim, it would have been robbed to death anyway but you get a beater out of it, which will get looked after, not get sold for crack.
It's shady territory morally, but it's how I feel about the matter.