Look at it from their point of view. A random women comes to them telling them that someone stole their bike and that it's at Y and was stolen by X. That women could just be trying to make the police steal that bike for her. Or that person could have stolen that bike.
How would you like it if something you owned was taken by the police because they accused you of stealing it in the first place? That's why the police need evidence. The woman claims X stole her bike, so she needs evidence that X stole the bike and that that bike in particular is said bike. She made the claim, she needs to provide the evidence.
People seem to have good intentions with stuff like "But it's her bike!" but they don't seem to understand the implications. If someone could have something just by saying "Hey, that's mine!" then society would crumble.
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· 6 years ago
she obviously can prove it is her bicycle also if it wasn't stolen the person on gumtree would have gone to the police
I read the story, and it didn't mention any evidence. Do you know of any? The police quote says that they didn't have sufficient evidence, so I'm inclined to believe them.
How would you like it if something you owned was taken by the police because they accused you of stealing it in the first place? That's why the police need evidence. The woman claims X stole her bike, so she needs evidence that X stole the bike and that that bike in particular is said bike. She made the claim, she needs to provide the evidence.
People seem to have good intentions with stuff like "But it's her bike!" but they don't seem to understand the implications. If someone could have something just by saying "Hey, that's mine!" then society would crumble.