Police officer reunited with hat after 23 years

Supt Paul Allen had not seen his hat for 23 years

When PC Paul Allen lost his police hat more than 20 years ago, he assumed he would never see it again.

However, the now superintendent had a call this month to say it had been found - in a quarry.

The hat was discovered by a member of the public at Ibstock Quarry, 14 miles (22.5km) away from where Supt Allen last saw it in Leicester city centre.

He said the hat was in "really good condition", and added "it really is a prized possession".

Supt Allen said: "I was out on patrol one Saturday night all those years ago.

"Me and a colleague were sent to an incident in the city centre and we ended up sitting a young lad in the back of the car.

"We got back to the station at about three o'clock in the morning and realised the hat was gone. It seemed someone wanted to have a souvenir of their night."

More than 20 years had passed when Allen got the call to say his hat had been found - in fact it had been so long that he did not realise at first that it was his long-lost hat.

"I got a phone call to say they had found a hat in an Ibstock quarry with PC429 and Allen wrote on it, but we have lots of hats over the years so the penny didn't drop," he said.

"It has the old badge which we don't have anymore. It doesn't seem like it's been outside for very long.

"It is special, when I joined we were moving to all new equipment so it's nice to have something from that time back.

"We might hand it over to our archivist because this story is probably worth telling again when I retire but for now it is sitting on the shelves in my office."