POLICE in south Shropshire have renewed warnings for motorists to take satellite navigation systems out of their unattended cars and ensure they do not have "home" or similar saved as a route.

The advice comes after a Shropshire family visiting Alton Towers had their car broken into and the sat nav and a set of car keys stolen. The offenders then used the sat nav, which had "home" saved, to find their house and stole a £20,000 Saab convertible from the driveway.

Detective Sergeant Chris Walsh, of Shropshire's Intelligence Unit, said it was vitally important that people did not save any setting remotely linked to their home address in their devices.

"If your car is then broken into, particularly if you have an in-built sat nav as part of the dashboard, all the offenders have to do is search for "home" or similar and it will take them right to the door of your empty residence," he added.

"In this case, the sat nav took them straight to the door of the victims house and they then stole the convertible from the driveway. This has since been recovered."

"If you must have a setting saved to get you home, only ever put your town in to get you back to familiar territory. Don't use your postcode."