Hi,

On, or about (as they say), Saturday 19th May, my daughter’s Specialized Myka Sports Disc (17″) and my hack bike (based on a Specialized P1 All Mountain) were stolen from our shed in Wylam.

Later this week I found them on Gumtree and informed the police.

An arrest has now been made and my daughter’s bike recovered.

The police also found:

Trek SL 1200 – black/red/white/silver
Giant GSR 400 – grey

All frame numbers are intact.

In the recent past, the same gentleman (or at least someone with the same mobile number) has also moved on a white Cube mountain bike:

Cube

If you recognise any of these, then please get in touch with (W)PC 8230 Todner at Northumbria police. She operates from Prudhoe and 01661 832204 will get you through to her.

Thanks,

Rob.

Good work Rob!

Nothing missing here, but thanks for the heads up and very well done for tracking the guy down.

Hi,

Bump with more info.

File now with the CPS. Police have reccomeneded case for handling stolen goods. CPS will decide by 12/06/12.

If we can find the owners of the Trek and the Giant, then the sentancing guidelines could be as “severe” as 1 – 4 years, so please publicise this is the North East.

EDIT: Links above now dead as all items have been taken off Gumtree. But if you search in google, and then hover on the results, you will see to little arrows pointing to the right. Hover on these and you get athe option to look at a cached version of the pages.

Thanks,

Rob.

Nice work. Top man.

I have posted this info on the Newcastle MTB website. One of us had a Cube stolen recently, although I dont think it was white.

Cheers,
STS.

Might i suggest punting this towards the local press up that way. Press office for the local force would be happy for some pro policeing news and you might get a bit more exposure.
Mike

A minor victory:

A local scrote has just been found guilty in this case for handling stolen goods and has to pay £110 fine and £100 costs.

The level of punishment for some one with previous seems …… on the low side!

So if he steals and moves on one bicycle, then he can pay the fine?

I don’t see the point in a financial penalty for a financial crime, when the wrongdoer has resorted to financial crime to earn income.

You need a different way of disuading the criminal.

For pity sake! £210 total?

After presumably “handling” several grands worth of bikes?

No wonder bike theft is seen as a No Risk crime by scrotes.

American, but rings true here too:
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles

You need a different way of disuading the criminal.

Yep! If only there was some kind of institution where they could be locked up for a while…

should the fine not equal the value of the goods? That would seem proportional…

I wonder if drastic penis shortening for bike theives would have the desired multiple benefits?

think some time on a chain gang would make them sick!

It is a little galling.

I think I may waste an hour or so composing a complaint for my Witness Care Officer to pass along the chain, which no doubt will be ultimately ignored 😥

I’d see if The Hexham Currant and/or The Journal is interested.

Seems to be the way of things.

No wonder the police are so relaxed (disillusioned?) about catching these thieving sods.

No criminal justice follow through, other than in the pants filling sense.

do you know where he lives?

Hey LabWormy,

Newcastle Cycle Campaign have been approached by Inside Out (BBC Newcastle) wanting to speak to victims of bike crime in the Newcastle area.

Your story might be a good one to tell. You interested?

Still lurking 🙂 – email sent

I don’t normally like to get all ‘Daily Mail’ about sentencing but that’s ridiculous. Glad you got the stuff back though.

email sent

Nice. Be good to raise awareness of how crap the sentences are.
Someone nicking several car worth the same amount of money would get a much stiffer sentence.

It’s actually worse than you lot make out with these fines, it’s not as though they will get paid anytime soon – the thought that thiefy will trot down to the courthouse with his illgotten £210 as soon as he’s done his next ‘job’ is optimistic. Real example of a fine payment scenario:

Scrote is up before the beak for non-payment of fines (picked up after a routine traffic stop, warrants for non-payment outstanding). Series of fines of the kind of scale above, £100 here, £150 there. No (legitimate income) so he’s supposedly paying them off at £2 a week for this one, £1.50 a week for that one etc. Probably owes £800 – £1,000 in fines, and is supposed to be paying, say £20 a week, but hasn’t bothered. Beak looks at the record, looks at how much is outstanding and the only disclosed income being benefits, says, you’ll never be able to pay these and does a reverse debt consolidation, writing most of it off and leaving him something like £50 to pay off at, y’know, £1 a week. The hearing took about 2 minutes, start to finish, including confirming his address and so on.

And this was by no means an unusual occurence. In short, the scrote above will have left the court laughing.

Thanks Ed, that is thoroughly depressing. 🙁

Can’t we just tattoo “Thieving Git” across their hands and send them on their way?
At least that might have some effect on his ability to keep robbing.

Suspect that it was slightly worse than that, given:

He had a previous conviction for metal theft from a hospital.
His house contained much that could not be “accounted for”, but could not traced to possible owners.

Can’t we just tattoo “Thieving Git” across their hands and send them on their way?
At least that might have some effect on his ability to keep robbing.

First it was Liverpudlians, then Papua New Guineans and then Jamie Oliver.
Now Boris Johnson has a new target in his sights – bicycle thieves.
Fed up with having his bike stolen and wheel nuts taken, the outspoken Tory MP and cycling enthusiast wants to get tough on bike thieves.
Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Islington Cyclists Action Group at Islington Town Hall on Wednesday night, he called for hardline ‘Sharia law’ to be used on bike thieves.

🙂

I really like Boris, but that link is from 2007 – but nothing appears to have changed

Chain gangs really are the answer.

Turn up for your allocated 12 hour shift every day for 10 / 20 / 30 days or all benefits are stopped and your are tagged

Sadly, jail is not the answer, as it just produces better & harder criminals

Bringing back the birch would also help.

I’d be happy to help with the birching or the chaingangs….