Police have appealed to black cab drivers in London after a father lost the urn containing his child’s ashes.
The man was carrying the ashes in an Adidas bag in a taxi from Fenchurch Street to Smithfield Meat Market on Friday morning at 6:30am (28 July).
City of London Police announced an urgent appeal to all black cab drivers on Twitter the same morning, which has already received over a million views.
“Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of the urn is urged to contact the force on 020 7601 2222.”
The general secretary of the London cab drivers’ trade union, Steve McNamara, told The Daily Telegraph he’s “not in the slightest bit surprised” about the ashes being left.
“The stuff that gets left in cabs is literally beggars belief. We’ve had babies and tens of thousands in cash,” he said, also citing dogs, prosthetic limbs and false teeth as previously misplaced items.
“People forget. The husband and wife get out of the cab, he pays the cab or she pays the cab, they think the other one’s going to get the baby.
“The most recent one we had a guy who left £35,000 cash in the cab and the driver handed it back to a police station.”
By law, anything left in a taxi must be handed into a police station, but sometimes police are unaware and refuse to take care of the items, Mr McNamara said.
“If the driver finds [the ashes], I can absolutely guarantee he’ll give it back but the problem is in cabs, people get in after you and can take it, he warned.
“We constantly receive messages all day long of people returning lost property and going to great lengths to do it - we had a guy drive from London to Norfolk to return something.”
The tweet has received thousands of replies from people sharing the appeal.
