UK POLICE SET UP NATIONAL DATABASE TO ADDRESS COMMUNICATION DEVICE THEFT PREVENTIONAvon and Somerset Constabulary - NewsroomPeople urged to 'MEND' their ways (force-wide)

Added - Friday, 13 May 2005 16:25

Owners of mobile equipment are being urged to ‘MEND’ their ways and sign up to a new national database which can help prevent crime.

The plea follows a number of recent mobile phone thefts in the St George Park area of Bristol.

Now police are urging more people to sign up to the free, web-based, Mobile Equipment National Database (MEND).

It allows the owners of mobile phones and other electrical equipment, such as iPODS, MP3 players, hand-held and desktop computers, to register their contact details and intrinsic identifiers of the item, such as the make, model serial or mobile phone IMEI numbers.

So far there are some 14 million registered users on the secure, simple to use, MEND database.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary, as a force, has signed up and is urging individuals to do the same.

More than 2,000 mobile phones, laptops and other devices are lost or stolen in the UK every day.

Half of all street crime – and 11 per cent of all crime - nationally involves a mobile phone with 30 per cent of all street crime involving only mobile phones.

Tens of thousands of these items are recovered but are never returned to their rightful owners, due to difficulty in tracing that person.

MEND allows police to instantly ascertain whether an individual is in possession of lost or stolen equipment registered on the system.

Only properly authorised police personnel will have access to the system for ‘interrogation’ and crime detection purposes.

Action on Street Crime co-ordinator, Sergeant Caroline Howard, said: “At present, without conducting extensive enquiries, details of stolen or found property are usually only available to officers within a prescribed police force boundary.

“The MEND database addresses this anomaly, allowing for fast repatriation of lost or stolen property.

“This crime prevention initiative will assist in the recovery of lost or stolen mobile phones and electrical equipment, preventing loss of important data and providing valuable assistance to police in the arrest and detection of offenders.

“A number of phone companies are now automatically registering people who are buying mobile phones at the point of sale.”

Anyone who wants to register their mobile phones or electrical devices, free of charge, should log onto www.menduk.org or text the word MEND followed by the IMEI number, first name, last name, postcode, non-mobile contact number and house name or number to 87222.

To find your IMEI number key *#06# into your phone.

PS Howard said: “We would strongly recommend that people follow our lead by registering all their own equipment on the system.”