Police seek owner of stolen guitar

THE guitar recovered in Oldham

POLICE are looking to return a guitar to its owner after they found it stashed with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of stolen vehicle parts.

The guitar was found in a unit at the rear of Maple Mill along with other items and vehicle parts with a collective value of over £350,000.

Police were led to the unit after following up reports that two cars had been stolen from the driveway of a house on Grosvenor Road, Sale shortly before 8.25am on Wednesday, June 7.

The next day officers tracked one of the cars to a unit at the rear of Maple Mill on Groby Street, Oldham and upon arrival discovered the car had been almost completely stripped of its parts.

Two men, aged 22 and 35, were arrested on suspicion of burglary and have been released under investigation.

A subsequent search of the unit found parts from 15 other recently stolen vehicles from Greater Manchester and surrounding areas such as Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Merseyside.

Other items were recovered, all of which have been returned to their owners apart from a guitar, which has stickers on the back that spell 'EVIE CE' and the case has a cat toy attached to it.

Police Constable Jonathan Griffiths, of GMP's Vehicle Intelligence Unit, said: "This guitar is the only item stolen in this audacious string of crimes that is yet to be traced to its rightful owner.

"It looks like it might have belonged to a child - the case has a cat toy attached and the guitar has distinctive stickers on it. Someone must know who 'EVIE CE' might be.

"If you do think you know the owner of this guitar, then please get in touch so we can reunite them with their stolen property."

Anyone with information should contact police on 0161 856 6497, 101 quoting incident number 980 of 08/06/17, or the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.