Metal detectorist dubbed Batman after reuniting hundreds with lost items

Darren Wiles, 52, set up a website in 2011 called Bournemouth Detecting Club to recover and reunite people with their misplaced items for free.

Since then, Mr Wiles, who lives in Winton, Bournemouth, has documented his finds on Facebook and has recovered more than 250 items for people across Dorset, and sometimes further afield, including East Sussex and Surrey.

He balances the project alongside his full-time job at software company Netcall, and has rescued items ranging from washing line brackets to keys, phones and jewellery.

“I’ve been asked to search a dog before because someone thought it had eaten their ring,” Mr Wiles told the PA news agency.

“I’ve helped 239 people and I’ve recovered 257 items because people sometimes lose more than one thing.

“It’s all about patience, I think a lot of people think you just rock up and find it, and it can take hours but if you put in the time you sometimes get the rewards for it – and my wife Amanda has been very supportive.”

His heroic work has led to him being being nicknamed “the ring doctor” and “Superman” and he was recently likened to Batman by a teenager whose chain he found.

Jamie Holland was given a silver chain by his parents for his 18th birthday in December, which he always wore and was meant to be something he would “keep for the rest of his life”.

On June 25, while swimming with friends on Bournemouth Beach, Mr Holland took the chain off and put it on top of his clothes on the sand to prevent any potential damage from sea salt.

His mother Carrie Holland, 49, told PA: “When he came back and picked his clothes up, all his jewellery just went everywhere as he had a couple of rings as well, so he was looking for about an hour and he managed to find his rings, but he and his friends just couldn’t find his chain.

“Presumably, as they were sweeping through the sand, they must have been burying it deeper and deeper into the sand.”

Ms Holland, who lives in Bournemouth and works in a nursery, said her son was upset so she turned to Facebook and found the Bournemouth Metal Detecting Club And Free Recovery Service page, where she made a post about the chain on June 28.

At around 6.30am on June 29, Mr Wiles sent Ms Holland a photo of the chain, after finding it at 4.40am.

“I just couldn’t believe it, I was amazed,” she said.

“I went into my son’s room – who is never awake at 6.30am – and said (Mr Wiles) has found your chain, and my son was so relieved and said ‘what a lovely, lovely man’.”

Mr Wiles returned the chain in person, with Mr Holland saying: “Wow, that man’s like Batman.”

Ms Holland added: “Jamie said he is like Batman because he is someone you can call in your hour of need and doesn’t do it for financial gain, but to help people, which is very rare these days.”

The time it takes Mr Wiles to find lost items fluctuates, but he said a good waterproof metal detector, asking lots of questions and sometimes getting people to re-enact how they may have lost something, can speed up the process.

“A couple of days ago, I was looking for a ring for someone and literally turned my detector on, it made a sound and I found the ring straightaway,” he said.

“The longest I’ve ever done is probably over a two-week period, where I was going out maybe three or four hours at a time and was just going up and down the beach where the tide kept taking the ring in and out.”

He recalled a case where a woman cried the entire time he was searching for two rings she lost at sea.

“I luckily managed to find them and she gave me a massive hug as she was so relieved that she had got them back.

“That’s the reason I do it, it’s nice to see people’s faces and reactions when you return stuff.

“I don’t care what it is – it could be a £3 ring from New Look – I always say, if it is important to them, it’s important to me and I’ll do my best to get anything back.”