Having just watched the local news, some of the loot was dog food bound for Portugal. Now spare a thought for those hungy dogs.
So many of the problems can be layed at the medias door, as you say Hannah they have literally advertised the situation. How else would people from Birmingham and Kent got hold of the story and travelled to Devon.
(Not picking on you lovely people from Birminghamand Kent but in a news report they openly said that they had seen it on the news and driven down to see what they could find)

Only if you fail to reprot what you have taken to the keeper of the wreck.


IMO i think a lot of companys will not be fussed getting the stock back as a lot may not be good enough to sell and they will be insured, it still does not make the scrum for things right.

I would close the beach off and allow so many scavengers in but they would have to sign and show ID before entering the beach and before scavenging they would have to do some work to clean the beach and wildlife in the area.

It's not actually stealing/looting, it's salvage. As Stormy says, as long as they sign for what they take they are not breaking any laws. Apparently the owners have a year to reclaim it and must pay a salvage reward otherwize the "salvagers" are entitled to keep the goods. Not saying it's right morally.. but legally it's perfectly ok.

I doubt if many of the looters signed for anything they found.
They have now closed the beach and have cordons of police around the place. The reason they didn't do this before apparently is because they were not sure of the laws. Nearly all maritime laws are hundreds of years old.

Bet the insurance companies are absolutely crapping themselves..

I think most will have signed, but i have i feeling they are all called John Smith and live on high street

Best of luck to em I say. The insurance companies will pay out so if Joe Blogs (or rather John Smith from Highstreet ) doesn't get it then the big salvage companies will.

I read that for someting like this, their is no law to stop you taking it... but youhave 28 days to declare what your have taken othewise you are then breaking the law at it still technically belongs to the original owners and can be classed as theft.

Yup thats right... but if you register it, the owners would then have to pay a salvage fee to you before they can claim it back. So nice little earner in any case