Van stolen from North Yorkshire reunited with owner

Officers in Cleveland came across an abandoned vehicle shortly before 11.30pm on Friday 29^th November. The Fiat Ducato van was plain white, without any signage and was on false plates.

Suspecting that the vehicle had been stolen, officers arranged for the recovery of the van to a local garage so that it could be preserved for Scenes of Crime Officers to carry out a forensic examination on the vehicle. There were no reports that this vehicle had been stolen at the time. The officer who arranged recovery of the vehicle also made a note on the Police National Computer against the VIN number of the van to say we suspected that this vehicle had been stolen and had been recovered by Cleveland Police. 

On Monday 2^nd December at around 10:30am (yesterday) we received a report from North Yorkshire Police, who had received an online crime report that a van had been stolen and had noted our message on the Police National Computer that this vehicle had been recovered. 

The vehicle has been forensically examined today and the owner of the van has been informed and will collect his vehicle soon.  We are pleased that the owner has now been reunited with his van, but just as sad as everyone else to hear that the tasty pies in the van have sadly perished.