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Mabel swans neck stolen


Jrtm

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1 hour ago, carlt said:

"If it's not yours then keep your hands of it!" may not be the letter of the law but it's a good starting point for a moral code.

I have in the past made every effort to find out if a boat has been abandoned or not...becoming the rightful owner on several occasions, but if I couldn't .find the owner or prove it to be abandoned I left it alone...even when BW have told me "We don't know who the owner is, just take it."

It is easy to locate the owner of these boats. She has even posted on here. 

There is no reasonable excuse to thieve from them.

Edited to add: My first point was correct though...Theft is Theft.

Your attempt at pedantry merely claims that taking something without permission is not always theft but...Theft is Theft.

Morally you may be correct but the law is different.  I object to you saying that my stating the law is "pedantry".

In the hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of theft that have passed through my hands on the way to court, the possibility that the property in question had been abandoned is just one of the many aspects I had to consider.

By the way, the only place that "theft is theft" is stated is this, "Theft is theft, notwithstanding a willingness to pay".  This covers where someone is not willing to sell but you take it anyway leaving a fair price in its place.

George

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To clear up i dont know her personal on a personal level but i do know who she is and i have spoken to her in the past about buying the pair but i turned them down after i saw the pair from other side of the cut before i arranged a viewing. Subsequently i saw 2 other boats both wood and one of which i own.

On the side jan has posted on facebook about the neck being stolen but was in sept and evedence shows it was missing back in may. By this i dowt it will ever be found.

For peoples info the other i looked at was beech, all 4 boats i looked at i had a major intrest due to history + i knew ken ward and my dad even sold him the bolinder for beech (now in others hands after he died)

So my intrest also still remain with mabel and fmn but ill never own them.

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12 hours ago, pete harrison said:

 - all what we called 'salvage' when I worked on the boats :captain:

I have a much improved moral fibre nowadays and I am very happy to go along with 'Do I own this' and 'theft is theft'.

The caveat I should have probably added was that 'salvaging' only ever happened to boats that were sunk, derelict or both and very likely to be broken up or left to rot (this is how Museums got some of their exhibits back then - including complete boats). I would say that generally MABEL and FORGET ME NOT could easily be seen by most people to fall into this category but 'salvaging' is no longer something I would condone and I was trying to state what went on back then rather than make light of it now :captain: 

edit = and what goes around comes around as I have had all sorts taken off my boats over the years (shafts, lines, chimneys, a Klaxon horn e.t.c.), all by other boaters even though my boats were clearly still in service - and I do not expect this to change anytime soon.

12 hours ago, pete harrison said:

 

Edited by pete harrison
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7 minutes ago, furnessvale said:

If ever I am charged with an offence, can I please ask that you be the prosecutor?

George

Absolutely but the fact remains that if the defence proves that it wasn't theft then it never was theft.

"Not theft is not theft" is also an absolute.

I am not interested in the legal niceties of an offence that will never reach court.

Whoever took Mabel's swan neck has got away with it but they didn't think "That's not mine so I'll leave it alone."

Morally they are a thief.

1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

I thought they were up for sale

Yes you don't have to look hard to see that they are owned and available for sale (not "come and help yourself")

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2 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I thought they were up for sale

A jury has to consider what the defendant thought at the time, not what anyone else is thinking.

For example, a "For Sale" sign on the boat would be a pretty good rebuttal of the abandoned defence.

Alternatively, demonstrating that the thief was a boater, with knowledge of historic boats and reasonably expected know that such boats can get in that condition and still not be abandoned.

However, a passing scrap merchant would certainly use that defence.  You only have to look in the back of any passing "General Dealer" truck and see its contents to realise that you shouldn't leave anything metal laying about.

George

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48 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

Nobody should think an unattended metal object is theirs for the taking. It is perfectly legal (even if it is ill-advised) to leave it on your own property. The scrote who helps himself to it is still  a scrote. 

I couldn't agree with you more but I am simply pointing out what could happen legally.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

George

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1 hour ago, Machpoint005 said:

Nobody should think an unattended metal object is theirs for the taking. It is perfectly legal (even if it is ill-advised) to leave it on your own property. The scrote who helps himself to it is still  a scrote. 

The harsh bit is as its wood its one of tbe few metal bits

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3 hours ago, carlt said:

You're overthinking it.

"Theft is theft" is an absolute. No amount of legal blather will change that absolute. 

 

Well yes but its a self-evident and pointless statement too. A bit like "not theft is not theft".

Reminds me of "Brexit means Brexit". Gets us nowhere in understanding where the dividing line lies between theft and not theft. 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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12 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Well yes but its a self-evident and pointless statement too. A bit like "not theft is not theft".

Reminds me of "Brexit means Brexit". Gets us nowhere in underst

Blimey since when was commenting on thieves robbing from a boat comparable to Brexit? 

Toerags ripped off a boat that's all.

Theft in my book and I really don't care if others want to over analise it (no typo).

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1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You seem to care quite a lot given how much you are posting about it.

The owner of the boats is a close friend. Why should I not care? 

I also care about people trying to diminish the nastiness of the offence with their petty pedantry. 

I'm out...over to you for the last word. 

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11 minutes ago, archie57 said:

.....sorry to be pedantic, but please could we call the missing item by the correct name - we had this discussion a while ago!  This is how history gets distorted.....

Certainly: accuracy need not be pedantic. What name would be correct?

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3 minutes ago, archie57 said:

Rams Head!

Thanks! I am no expert, but I thought that the ram's head was the bit of a butty's rudder structure into which the tiller fitted, whereas a swan('s) neck was the curved bar or tube which linked tiller to rudder on a motor boat; not so?

(I'm not sure if Mabel is a motor or a butty, but an earlier reference to the purloined part being metal suggest a motor).

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28 minutes ago, carlt said:

The owner of the boats is a close friend. Why should I not care? 

I also care about people trying to diminish the nastiness of the offence with their petty pedantry. 

I'm out...over to you for the last word. 

Pity you are out.  I presume that comment was aimed at me.  As I have been at pains to point out, there is nothing pedantic in pointing out what the law of the land actually is, as opposed to what you wish it to be.

For what it is worth, having  dealt with thieves for a good slice of my life, having listened to their excuses in court and having had to try and LEGALLY counteract them, I am as frustrated as you and would gladly string some up with piano wire from certain appendages.

George

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