Golf club theft or loss?

Martyn – I cannot help much, except to report that something very similar happened to me once, with two similar raincoats in a BMI locker. The airline were very sympathetic but did not (and would not) specifically tell me that they had chased the person who had taken my coat in error.

The missing coat was never returned but the insurance company paid – it was so long ago that I cannot remember the wording of the insurance policy, but a phone call to report a “loss”, with a report of the exact circumstances led to painless reimbursement.

What a nuisance Martyn, and clubs are so personal that I’d like to think it was taken in error so cannot be a theft. Did they have a tag with a name or number on them? Hopefully when they realise their mistake they will contact you.

In November LP junior picked up the same colour and type of bag after our George -JNB flight with Kulula. We were about to check in when we got a call from the airline informing us of the mistake. Bags swapped and I was impressed with the airline for calling me.

Seems strange, after all wouldn’t the airline just say that any time any bag went missing? “Sorry sir, someone else must have taken it”.

Having said that it does surprise me how many bags going round the carousel these days look so similar. Mine is decorated in brightly coloured stickers so there would be no risk of it being taken unless someone was really out to steal something.

As a postscript I came through Lusaka a couple of weeks ago and before leaving the baggage hall I had to show the tag matched the bag. First time in about 20 years that has happened.

This is a rare example of a case where African airports do something better than we do: at many airports most especially Lagos, passengers are required to show their baggage receipt, which is compared to their tag, on leaving the terminal.

A friend of mine once flew in from AMS, collected her case, got home, opened it and found it full of hardcore pornography. The case had a phone number on it, which she rang and discovered that a very well-known rock musician, living hundreds of miles away in Devon, had her own case. The rock star wasn’t keen to help (I wonder why?) so she was obliged to drive all the way to exchange the cases. When she unpacked her own case she was annoyed to find that it had been comprehensively rummaged and her private effects disturbed.

Martyn, Junior should not be putting his home address on baggage tags, lest a miscreant purloins the bag and deduces that the premises may be empty while the owner is travelling.

E-mail address and phone number are quite sufficient.

How is it that this last post was timed at 07.39 GMT while I am writing mine at 07.09 GMT?

EDITED; I can now see that your clock is wrong, has not been brought forward. Please correct.

BTW Martyn, FWIW, it does not sound as though the bags were “stolen”, at least under English law, which defines theft as “dishonestly appropriating the property of another with intent permanently to deprive” – although there are quite a few caveats around the way “permanently” is construed.

If another passenger mistakenly takes the wrong bag – and it happens, the Memsahib did precisely that a year or two back – then they have not “dishonestly” misappropriated it and thereis no theft.

The scenario is quite similar to one I had thrown at me for my university interview (BEFORE I had studied any law!). The scenario unfolded in stages, but in essence it was that a restaurant customer goes to collect his coat and umbrella after his meal and finds his umbrella has gone. He therefore decides to take another umbrella instead, despite the fact that he “knows” it belongs to someone else..However, as luck would have it, the one he chooses is one he himself forgot and left behind on a previous visit. Was an offence committed?? The answer is not as straightforward as you might think…