Free milk for life, a freshly shot rabbit and a wedding: Weirdest gifts to police revealed
A £200 wedding service was gifted to Suffolk Constabulary Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto - Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
A £200 wedding service and a muntjac deer are among the strangest gifts received by police officers in Suffolk in the past year.
A BMW I3 worth £1,046, a freshly shot rabbit worth £10 and 'indefinite' free milk from the Coop for the Sudbury team also feature on a list of gifts sent to people working at Suffolk Constabulary in 2020, all of which have to be declared.
Gifts worth a total of £3,861.67 have bee donated to the Suffolk force so far this financial year. That is down from £11,696 in the 2018/19 year.
Free milk has been gifted indefinitely to the Sudbury policing team by the Coop (stock image) - Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Other unusual items on the list included a £348 Volkswagen V6, a 50p memorial coin and £40 worth of cheese.
Food items were the most common gift, with everything from pizzas and Easter eggs to kebabs on the list.
Covid-19 related items, such as face shields and hand sanitizer, were also among those received this year. M&S vouchers given to the police were donated to the NHS NICU (newborn intensive care unit).
In earlier years, unusual gifts have included a signed photo of Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth, alongside a baby names book.
A signed photo of Dani Filth is among the strangest gifts to Suffolk police over the years - Credit: Nick Butcher
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Police bosses say that all members of constabulary staff are required to declare any offer or acceptance of a gift, and this is closely monitored by the professional standards department.
For instance, a long-serving officer who had worked in a community for many years was offered and accepted gift vouchers from the parish councils on his retirement.
"Another example might be a victim of a burglary who is extremely grateful for officers' work and is very insistent that those officers accept some small token, such as a box of chocolates," a spokesman said.
"Most offers of a gift are politely refused unless it is considered a refusal would cause offence - if it is felt that a refusal of the gift would cause offence then the gift is accepted and the officer would report their acceptance to the professional standards department via their area commander, which is then recorded on a register.
"Other gifts, which are of a higher value, are referred to chief officers for consideration on a case-by-case basis.
"The chief officer will decide whether the gift should be retained or returned - in many instances the gift is forwarded to a local charity or other deserving cause, and are often donated as raffle prizes."
