Mystery Hartlepool good Samaritan makes 30-mile trip to return man's lost wallet

Ken Thompson wants to thank the mystery motorist who is believed to have driven around 30 miles in total to drop his wallet off after he lost it in Hartlepool.

Retired Hartlepool police constable Ken Thompson was distraught after realising he had mislaid the wallet, which contained around £100 in cash and his driving licence, while shopping in the town centre.

After emptying his car to no avail, he returned home “feeling such a fool” with wife Mandy.

A search of their Ferryhill house and a phone call to Hartlepool Police also failed to trace the wallet.

The car park, off Stockton Street, Hartlepool town centre, where Ken Thompson lost his wallet.

Around an hour after their return, however, a knock at the front door “restored my faith in humanity”.

Mr Thompson, 68, said: “My wife answered and it was a man who had placed my wallet by the front door and asked ‘does Kenneth live here?’.

“He said he wanted to return it quickly before I cancelled anything.

“My wife was gobsmacked and before she had a chance to ask him his name he had jumped back into his car and gone.

“When my wife told me who it was I was utterly elated that someone had had the decency to return it.

“It is the first time I have done anything like this and it left me feeling such a fool.

“But what he did in coming all the way from Hartlepool is a fantastic gesture and has restored my faith in humanity”.

Mr Thompson and his wife, a 61-year-old retired nurse, had just parked in the Stockton Street car park next to Middleton Grange Shopping Centre when he realised he had dropped his phone last Thursday, May 14.

But it was not until they returned to the vehicle that they feared his wallet must have fallen out of his inside jacket pocket as well.

Mr Thompson, who served in Hartlepool for nine years between the mid 1970s and early 1980s, now hopes to trace the man to say thank you personally.

He said: “I’d like to at least give him his petrol money or maybe leave something like a bottle of whisky on his doorstep.”

Mr Thompson, who still visited Hartlepool regularly before the coronavirus outbreak to walk his dogs at Steetley, has already binned the wallet – “it was getting on a bit anyhow” – and replaced it with a newer model complete with chain so that it remains attached to him.

The mystery motorist, believed to be aged in his 40s and driving an Audi, can contact Mr Thompson via Gavin Ledwith at the Mail by emailing [email protected] or by ringing (07393) 754579.

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