Police urge residents to register valuables

Police officers will be travelling around the area to encourage Rochdale residents to register their valuables online.

Officers will be at Morrisons Supermarket, Heywood, Asda on Dane Street, Rochdale and Tesco at Middleton Gardens, Middleton between 10am and 6pm on Tuesday 13 January to demonstrate the use of the UK’s National Property Register “Immobilise”.

The weeks surrounding Christmas bring prime pickings for light-fingered thieves with some of the most popular presents this year being flat screen TVs, MP3 players and games consoles. Statistics from the Greater Manchester Police showed that there were 139 domestic burglaries between September and December in Middleton alone.

However by using “Immobilise” owners can put up details to be used for comparison should stolen items be recovered from criminals. The database is both simple and free and allows users to add item photographs and certificates of ownership to their accounts as well as immediately alerting law enforcement to the theft of an item.

Currently, “Immobilise” has a running record of 250 cases per week of items being successfully reunited with their owners. Furthermore, the system also aids with insurance claims as some companies may be reluctant to pay compensation to the 18% of cases where theft is due to trivial security negligence, such as leaving a window open.

Anyone wishing to register items on the database can find it at www.immobilise.com