A man has been reunited with precious family photos stolen from his home after a Twitter appeal went viral.

A blue Ikea bag was found dumped by the River Wandle in the Haslemere Industrial Estate in Wandsworth on December 23 by a dog walker which contained a memory card of digital photos and other items. 

In January, two photos from a wedding found on the card were used by police to launch a public appeal on Twitter in a bid to find their owner.

Their rightful owner, Jon from Wimbledon, was eventually alerted to their discovery by a friend of a friend who lives in London and appeared in the pictures, after they in turn were contacted by another friend who had spotted them in the pictures in Newcastle.

Jon had been burgled shortly before Christmas and had given up on ever having his belongings returned when he received the call.

He said: "My wife and I have been enormously impressed by the dedication of the Met Police and the initiative they have shown in using social media to reunite us with our stolen belongings.

“We had little expectation of ever seeing our missing property again so it was a wonderful surprise to have a friend send us the link to the Met's tweet showing our photo frame images.

"We're over the moon."

Since the appeal the couple have been contacted at least four times by friends who have spotted the pictures.

Detective Constable Riaz Karolia of Wimbledon Police said: "We are absolutely delighted that we were able to restore the digital photo frame and memory card to its rightful owner.

“To come home on Christmas day to find that you have been burgled must have been devastating.

"After extensive enquiries we were unable to trace the owner so we looked for other ways trace them and felt Twitter would be a great platform to get the appeal out to a large number of people.

"Without the help of our Twitter followers we may not have been able to solve this case. We are extremely grateful for all those who re-tweeted our original Tweet or shared the link to our website."