To follow on from my post above. A quick update. Three-and-a-half years ago I had my computer taken off me in the raid. I stated from the beginning if I can't have that computer back I want my documents off it as there were some very personal and work-related things on there. A few months ago I provided the same officer (the nice one that I mentioned above) with a blank hard drive and they've now returned it to me with the documents from that computer. I am so pleased.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

I have a similar situation. I'm told what happens is.... (whether this is true or not... we'll see...) everything is taken off the devices and kept on a database. So while they DO destroy the physical device, they should keep ALL device contents on a server. That came from my first RMO who promised me he would look into getting my documents back as I have photos of relatives who have passed on there. I've since moved house (and police forces) and he's stopped replying to my emails... I'm tempted to ring and chase it up.

For what I know, legally, you are entitled to everything back that did not break any laws (Please correct me if I'm wrong). I fought for this from day one as they took a lot of my things. I kept the itinerary list of what they took on the day of the raid and, fair play to them, they returned everything to me that was 'clean' including a laptop, mobile phones etc.

I agree that the court deciding to destroy devices needs to be thought through again. In this day and age computers are more than just computers they're your 'record collection, family photo album, workstation' etc all sorts of things and they can't just be treated as a 'computer' and this needs to be taken into account with raids, holding of devices for investigation and the return of them afterwards.

As a side note, they took my girlfriend's devices too, but I (calmly) pushed to get those triaged and they were returned within a few months. I include that line in case this helps anyone else's situation as this was a big relief for her when I managed to get them back.

I have to say, the officer who I was dealing with was very professional and was very reasonable throughout. I hope they're all like that because I know how much of a stressful situation it all is. I do, however, think something should be done about the length of investigation - the mental impact it has on you and those around you is horrendous and mine went on for 14 MONTHS (From raid to court) not knowing when they are going to decide your fate for so long absolutely destroys you, it's mental abuse, and that isn't taken into account on any level. 



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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

Where would I go to lodge an official complaint?

Bear in min that I don't want to complain against the cops who monitor me. Only cops who raided me ages ago.

The cops had court (or prosecutor) permission to dispose of my property. It was just a totally thoughtless\baseless decision.

In all fairness it is not a nice discussion to have with them, but they have a responsibility to analyse your risk to others - that's why they do that. As uncomfortable as you may find it, I am sure you understand why. As time passes and you demonstrate your compliance/ lack of risk these conversations will diminish. 

In terms of the destruction of property - lodge an official complaint. Give evidence and costs. They will likely send a letter of apology and nothing more. During my 'run in' they conducted several illegal searches and, unsurprisingly, found nothing. The police simply lied stating that they had consent - so in your situation I would sugest they would just lie too if you try to take further action.

Luckily I'm only 10 year on the SOR and they visit me twice a year, to interrogate me about wanking, for about five minutes each time.

But at any rate , the unit that come to monitor me have nothing to do with the unit that raided me.
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I had property stolen from me too by the Police, one of them was a replica fire arm (a plastic BB gun) but still legal, it was nothing more than a toy really. They also took all the hardware computer wise and i had to get one of the hard drives back because it had some very very important things on it, needless to say that item was clean anyway and i got it back. I wrote off the other stuf and if i really wanted to i could have got some items back like the graphics card, Power supply, sound card etc but to be honest i think I would just end up making my life worse. 

Remember these guys will be visiting you now for potentially the rest of your life if you have an indefinite SHPO, coming into your home, browsing your computer, looking through your cupboards and drawers and asking you awkward embarrassing and personal questions etc. So you need to think carefully about whether it is worth it in the long run pursuing the destruction of your property in the court if that property is not worth a fortune or can be replaced.

Police took all the digital property in my house. 

Only a tiny fraction of one device contained some underage pornographs.

Yet they destroyed everything indiscriminately.

Even the Hollywood DVDs (just to clarify the irrelevance of this property).

I went to a civil lawyer but he said I wouldn't get Legal Aid to fight this case because the compensation would only be about £1000-2000 and legal aid don't fund work over such meager amounts.

What should I do?