Items sold off at the sale on Saturday included mountain bikes, jewellery, watches and electrical goods.

The auction, held at Philip Brothers in Snitterfield, takes place in May and November to clear items recovered by police whose owners cannot be traced.

Items are sent in from police stations around Warwickshire including Rugby, Bedworth, Wellesbourne and Nuneaton.

Speaking before the sell off, Angela Morris who co-ordinates the auction for Warwickshire Police said she hoped the items would be reunited with their owners.

Given to charity

"Ideally, we'd like to reconcile every item back to its original owner, but in practice this isn't always possible because the items are not always marked very well," she said.

"Therefore every six months or so we have to clear out stores and we do this by auction", Ms Morris added.

Once the auctioneer's fee is deducted, money raised from the sell off is divided and goes to the individual police station that found or recovered the items,