Police are appealing for information after a van, reported as stolen, was found at the base of a 500ft cliff near Freshwater this morning (Wednesday).
Officers were called at 10:28 to reports of a van in the water off Military Road, as previously reported by Island Echo. The van had gone over the cliff edge and come to rest on the rocks below.
Police attended and around 90 minutes later the support of HM Coastguard and the RNLI was requested.
Coastguard Rescue Teams from The Needles and Ventnor responded to the scene and lowered 2 officers down from the cliff top to the vehicle below. Meanwhile, RNLI volunteers landed on the beach using Yarmouth Lifeboat’s Y-Boat.
The vehicle – described as a black Renault Master panel van with a registration number ending ZFK – was searched and found to be unoccupied, with no evidence that anyone was in the vehicle when it went over the cliff.
Hampshire Constabulary has confirmed that the van was reported stolen this morning, and is suspected to have been taken from Queens Road, Freshwater, sometime between 21:00 last night and 08:15 this morning. Island Echo is told that another vehicle at this located was damaged overnight too.
Police are appealing for anyone with information, dash cam footage or CCTV footage that could assist with enquiries into the theft of this vehicle, to get in touch.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101, quoting 44210050437. Alternatively, you can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers 100% anonymously on 0800 555 111, or via their anonymous online form at crimestoppers-uk.org
So this numbskull has put dozens of rescue people into danger, polluted a beautiful bit of coastline, caused distress and loss to the van owner …
Is boiling in oil still an acceptable punishment?
tar n feathered!
Disgusting waste of valuable resources, find whoever and give very lengthy community work placement
Quite, the operative word being ‘find’. To do that requires investigative policing.
The IoW police don’t seem to want to bother with that in my own experience. They just ask the public to submit any they might have and leave it at that.
– So crimes like this continue..
Bring back town square stocks and public birching, we could do with a bit of public entertainment.
Surely the police could get dna from the vehicle, or finger prints, or do they just rely on the public to ‘give them the evidence now via cameras so they can sit and scroll though it in a warm office, then dismiss it as non conclusive to avoid too much paper work.
Even IF they ever do ‘catch’ them, the courts will give a tiny fine that will likely only come out of dole money paid by us to them via the Government.
Shame the door didn’t jam shut.
Nobody in it obviously pushed over
After spending all night being swamped by seawater do you think DNA & fingerprints are going to survive. Your churlish, low grade comment about the police is straight out the barfly’s handbook.
No driver lol Insurance job
Bit unfair unless you know the whole story. Apparently a vendetta against the family rumour has it that’s why another car damaged.
He is hardly going to trash his van with my ladder and all of his tools in the back. Also his sons car had his windows put in which was parked behind it. It’s a vendetta by a very sad man.
Please learn to read all of the article and not just the title. Another vehicle was damaged where it was stolen from. And as someone who has had to make an insurance claim on a vehicle that was stolen, you NEVER make money at it. A lot easier to just sell it!
We got the Last one up, if they want it recoverd they know where we are
Please learn to read all of the article and not just the title. Another vehicle was damaged where it was stolen from. And as someone who has had to make an insurance claim on a vehicle that was stolen, you NEVER make money at it. A lot easier to just sell it!
Insurance job ! It’s not rocket science….
Bill you know nothing.
Not many stolen vans happen on the island, maybe this was an insurance job?! Only saying!!
Try halving the height of the cliff ?
It.s approxamatly 280ft from the cliff edge to the bottom at that point, and the road is about 18 meters further back if I remember correctly from last time.
Sounds right, so nothing like 500ft
This will turn out to be an insurance job.
Probably some poor resident who had the van parked outside their front door for weeks decided to make amends.
Please learn to read all of the article and not just the title. Another vehicle was damaged where it was stolen from. And as someone who has had to make an insurance claim on a vehicle that was stolen, you NEVER make money at it. A lot easier to just sell it!
My sister lives in the west wight, and says everyone knows whom possibly stole this van.
They are well know to all and hated even more. Known to police, but they seem to get away with everything.
Their day will come.
It certainly will.
Might be the same person who stole my Motorbike from outside my house when I lived in the West Wight. That Motorbike ended up down the same cliff. The Police did nothing to him back then.
Thankfully it wasnt another suicide.
Agreed, have dealt with a few there over the years….not nice
Whoever launched the van down and over the edge is very lucky they didn’t follow it. Body becomes hard to recognise from that height. Some would argue that perhaps they should have ‘followed the van’…. no great loss to the Island !
I was agreeing to Old School, not Banner