discarded bikes

[Rhythm Thief]

The "owners" of the skip are the hire company, they do not like people taking items of value from their skips.

Yebbut, bollocks to them. The amount you pay for skip hire they can withstand the occasional bike frame going missing. Besides, they're very rarely around to ask, or indeed to see you nicking stuff.

I'm sure i remember an episode of One foot in the grave when somebody dumped a 2CV in Victor's ship overnight.

I'd have been round first thing and had that 2CV if it'd happened on my road.

 

[Cush]

Slightly off subject but wasnt there a program on the TV last week, where a man found a picture dumped near a tip 20 years ago and when it was due to go up for auction the original or suposedly original owners tried to claim it back. two years on the case is still not settled and the only people making money are the lawyers. If this applys to a picture then it may also apply to any property

 

[swee'pea99]

Slightly off subject but wasnt there a program on the TV last week, where a man found a picture dumped near a tip 20 years ago and when it was due to go up for auction the original or suposedly original owners tried to claim it back. two years on the case is still not settled and the only people making money are the lawyers. If this applys to a picture then it may also apply to any property

Technically, yes - it probably does. As someone said earlier, there is an offense of 'stealing by finding'. I still think it's a bit daft, not to say offensive, to effectively accuse someone of thievery ("They're not actually yours, though, are they?
I mean, didn't you, like, steal them?") when all they've done is take a bust up old frame that's been chucked out by its owner. As Ken Clark might say, there's stealing and there's 'stealing'...

 

[TheDoctor]

Offensive? Moi?
I didn't effectively accuse them of stealing - I did do so.
Someones taken something they found and kept it.
Could have been dumped by its owner, could have been dumped by a thief.
That's neglecting the fact that scrap metal in a skip has a value, and it belongs to someone. Not to you.

If you want to use Ken Clarke as your moral compass, you go right ahead.

 

[swee'pea99]

Well, if you want to be all pedantic about it, I disagree. If you'd said: 'You stole them', that would be accusing them of stealing. If you ask a rhetorical question, that amounts, in my view, to 'effectively' accusing them.

As for using Ken Clark as a moral compass, not sure I'd want to go that far. But if you fail to acknowledge a moral difference between 'stealing', in the sense of taking something discarded out of a tip, and stealing, in the sense of taking bolt cutters to someone's lock and putting their pride and joy in the back of your van, then more fool you.

Is that offensive?

 

[TheDoctor]

Yes, nicely so, thanks

Really, I'm not trying to have a pop at anyone, and there's an obvious moral difference between getting stuff from a skip and cutting the lock on someone's bike. But there's no legal difference. That's the point I'm making.

 

[swee'pea99]

I'm sure we're both a bit bored with this now (not to mention anyone else) but in what world does calling a newbie making his first posts a thief not count as 'having a pop'?

 

[TheDoctor]

You're right. I maybe shouldn't have done that.
Although the OP did use the word 'stole' before I did.

 

[biggs682]

i found a frame in a hedge a while back picked up got home rang police gave them details took a ref number and rang back 6 months later and got told to do whatever i wanted with it so i did