A prestigious songwriting award has been found in a Croydon scrapyard 14 years after it went missing. 

The Ivor Novello award was bizarrely discovered by police officers, along with stolen telephone exchange batteries and bikes during a crackdown on metal theft.

Detectives would not immediately confirm where the award was found or who it belonged to, but it is thought to have disappeared during an office move in 1999. 

The bronze statuettes are handed out each May to recognise excellence in songwriting and composition in the music industry.

A raft of former students at Selhurst's Brit School - including Adele, Amy Winehouse and Imogen Heap - are among the 1,000 past recipients of the award. 

The statuettes are awarded for categories including best song musically and lyrically, best contemporary song and best original film score.

Winehouse won three Ivor Novellos before her death in 2011, including best contemporary song for Rehab in 2004 and best song musically and lyrically for Love is a Losing Game four years later. 

Emeli Sandé, Noel Gallagher and Calvin Harris are the most recent big-name recipients of Ivor Novellos, receiving prizes at last month's ceremony. 

The statuette was found in Croydon on May 30 - just two weeks after this year's ceremony.

The Metropolitan Police said the prize was not reported stolen when it went missing 14 years ago, but the scrap metal yard searched by officers could not produce the correct documentation for it.

The discovery was made during Operation Ferrous, a coordinated day of action to tackle metal theft in London.

Officers also seized three stolen bikes, 500kg of BT telephone exchange batteries, 34 insured vehicles and 22 dangerous defective vehicles.

They made 21 arrests and charged two scrap dealers with paying cash for scrap, which became illegal when changes to the Scrap Metal Dealer's Act came into force in December.

Acting inspector James Coomber, of the force's London Regional Intelligence Unit, said: "Overall, metal theft is down 50 per cent compared with this time last year thanks to activity generated by Operation Ferrous through scrap yard visits, road checks and search warrants.

"This is despite the price of copper and lead remaining relatively stable."