Police appeal after purse belonging to OAP taken in Alford

The pensioner sat on a bench in the Market Place shortly after midday on Saturday (August 10) and placed her purse nearby while she arranged her shopping. When she got up a few minutes later, she accidentally left the purse behind.

CCTV footage shows a female coming and sitting on the bench just after 12.10pm and appearing to pick something up before walking away. The next person to return to the bench was the lady who lost her purse, by which time it was gone.

The purse is made of grey fabric with two zips and contained the lady’s bank cards and an amount of cash.

PC Alina Ames said: “I would like to give the finder of the purse the benefit of the doubt and hope that the purse was picked up for safe-keeping with every intention of it being handed in.

“The purse belongs to an 81-year-old lady who is understandably very upset. The offence of ‘theft by finding’ may lead to a prosecution, the same as any other theft offence, but we would really like to avoid that and just get the purse back to its owner”.

If anyone has found this purse, contact PC Ames by calling Lincolnshire Police on 101, quoting ‘incident 232 of August 10, or hand it in to the Alford or Mablethorpe Police Stations.