Stolen motorcycle is traced via Facebook
We use it to keep in touch with friends old and new, post pictures and plan events. But one mother used Facebook to crack a crime – and had a dramatic result.
When yobs stole Debbie Woodward's daughter new motorbike, she turned to the social networking site as a last resort in tracking it down. A page was set up by a family friend, with photographs of the black Kawasaki, and Mrs Woodward waited patiently for news – not holding out any great hopes of recovering her daughter's motorcycle.
But within three-and-a-half hours someone had left comments on the page, saying they had seen a black bike in a nearby park.
Mother-of-two Mrs Woodward and her daughter Emma discovered the bike, which was a 30th birthday present, dumped in Silver Jubilee Park in Coseley.
Despite yobs destroying it by setting in on fire, Mrs Woodward has hailed modern technology for accomplishing something in a few hours that might have taken weeks of old fashioned detective work.
The 51-year-old, who works at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, said: "The Facebook page was absolutely wonderful. Within hours of us putting something on there, we had managed to track down the bike.
"It was not the outcome we wanted but at least we have got a bit of closure.
"People often criticise these social networking sites but Facebook accomplished something for us in a few hours that would have taken days or weeks the old fashioned way. It also restored my faith in human nature."
The motorbike was taken from outside Mrs Woodward's home in Dalwood Close, Bilston on September 25 in the early hours of the morning. It was a Kawasaki ER6n 650 bike, worth £4,500. It was discovered less than a mile away in the park.
