aint the police WONDERFUL

This is a personal note.....
On 12 july some competitors came to a venue I was working in , looked around and left. Unusual, but acceptable.
On leaving I found my 3 advertising boards I'd erected for the event had gone walkabout. These are £30 each so its a reasonable theft.
The competitors had left a note for each exhibitor asking if they'd like to work with them at an event a cpl weeks hence as well.
So I went to the event and lo and behold my boards were there advertising their show...
Having seen how our intrepd police operate before, I decided to ignore the cops and just retrieve them. As I was doing this, the organiser walks out and calls the cops.
having seen the speed of them managing this [they only took a cpl mins- I decided they hadn't so I did , just to make certain. ]
The Force duly arrived some half hour later, and took verbal statements.
As I hadnt a receipt for the goods at the time [ was at my accountants], he said it was my word against theirs. FAir enough I suppose in Law.
As I was a little irate at his point [I had really lost my rag as these guys knew they'd nicked it and I'd told the cops I just wanted them back- but they were adamant they were theirs] . The thieves then gave a compromise and said if I could produce a receipt on MOnday they'd give them back. Not ideal, but I thought that would allow them to give in gracefully.
On Sunday I found a board of mine from the same batch- and retrieved the receipt and off I went to get my goods back.
One item I've forgotten to mention was that the size of the boards had to be proveable [implicitly via the receipt]
On arriving , we found they'd cut one side of the board to change its shape . Obviously they thought that would be fine, but they'd replaced a fixing rivet with a totally different one where they'd had to cut mine off to adjust the size. The font font size,wording , font spacing strengthening gusset etc were all the same as my board, so it was still obvioulsy mine.
As they still wouldnt part with it [ amidst much swearing curses and other such fun] we returned home and called the cops. As we were now formally asking a complaint against a specific person living at a specific address they said they would come round for a formal statement. FINE
Then they phoned to say that as the theft had taken place in LOndon rather than just outside it [where Id found my property] they'd transferred it to the Metropolitan Police, and Id have to contact them. Why they can't speak to each other I dont know, but it figures.
So I phoned the Met the next day [today]. This is the system for transferring crimes.
Details go to the nick dealing with it
These are transferred to [in my case Southgate- but it could be London wide]
whwich generates a number and then the crime is active again - but it takes days to do that!
So now its back in limbo
Its not the worlds biggest crime, buut I found my stolen property and I want it abck - is it too much to ask ?