Lazy Victorian cops

Thief gets away with stolen iPad because police won't act

Police are yet to knock on the door of an alleged iPad thief almost a month after tracking software located a stolen device.

On Wednesday April 27, two digital cameras, a watch and a 3G Apple iPad were stolen from the home of Tim M, 24, who lives in St Kilda Road Central, Melbourne. In total the items stolen were worth $2000, said Tim, who did not want his last name published.

But police are yet to act on evidence showing where the iPad was last located after it was stolen. This is despite Victoria Police successfully using a helicopter last December to locate a boy who allegedly stole a woman's iPhone from a hospital in Melbourne's north-east.

There have also been countless overseas cases of people tracking down their stolen iPhones, iPads and MacBooks using tracking software. In these cases police have had no issues with using the evidence.

Tim is now considering knocking on the door himself but fears it may be too late. "It's definitely crossed my mind," he said. "I've thought of different ways I could try and approach the situation and I've always kind of held back because you never know what you're going to get."

He said that, immediately after noticing his iPad was stolen, he sent a message to its screen – using Apple's Find My iPad software - saying that if it was found it should be returned to him. He included a telephone number.

On Friday, April 29, about 7.30pm, he received an email stating that his message had been read. He immediately logged into Apple's Find My iPad service, which also reports the iPad's physical location, and found that it was located at a house in Hallam Reserve, Melbourne.

Seeing this, Tim called South Melbourne police station to inform them. "They said they were going to have to check it out," Tim said. "They couldn't just go and barge into that place unannounced," he added.

He said officers at the police station told him that they would try to process a search warrant. But, after calling back on that Sunday, he was told that the evidence that he provided to police was not going to give them enough for a warrant to search the suspected home.

Tim said he was "really frustrated at this point" because he knew exactly where the iPad was but could do nothing about it. For "safety reasons" he did not visit the place himself. He was also upset because he did not have insurance. He said he was going to give the iPad to his mother "because she's a bit of a technophobe".

"The only thing they [South Melbourne police] said they could do was send someone around from the local police station and go and ask questions. They said that they were going to do that."

The tracking software no longer shows in real time where the iPad is now located as it is likely that the person who stole it wiped it, Tim said. But he said he still had screenshots showing where it was on April 29.

When Tim contacted South Melbourne police station for an update last Friday he was told that the detective examining his case was on leave.

In a statement to Fairfax, Victoria Police media said that, as the matter was under investigation, it would be "inappropriate to comment further". "If the complainant in this matter has concerns about the investigation, the complainant should contact the officer in charge of South Melbourne [Criminal Investigation Unit]."

Tim said that we lived in an age in which you could now "do the job before the police and tell them exactly where to go instead of them chasing down leads". "The technology exists with these sorts of devices ... to hone in on a specific location and show [the police] where it is."

From his point of view it seemed as if there was too much "bureaucracy and legislation" preventing the police from doing a "simple task" such as going around to the suspected house and showing the residents the evidence provided by Tim. "But they can't do anything like that because of the fear that they're doing the wrong thing and it's not allowed sort of thing."

Tim believed the iPad might also lead police to the other items that were stolen. "It's hard to say [whether it will lead to the other items] but at the time [it was located there] it was three days after the robbery that it was at that address," he said. "So I think when it had located it there would've been a high chance that those items would've been with it."

Tim said he did not want to blame the police who were involved. He said that they could have done things "more efficiently" but understood there were probably "more important" things that they had to get on to. [Diplomatic!]

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