Yesterday my daughter had her bicycle stolen. CCTV footage of two youths stealing it was captured and the police informed. Then shortly afterwards the bike turned up on gumtree. My daughter informs the police officer dealing with this, but he is busy. He also says he only has part of the phone number and no address. My daughter then hunts down the sellers phone number, address and Facebook page. Gives the police officer several distinguishing features of the bike and it’s serial number! But the officer says the seller may not have the bike if/when he turns up (surely there’s no chance of getting it if he turns up in police uniform, he would need to go in disguise as a buyer?).

Any advise? She is very upset, especially as she can see her bike on gumtree.

Ps sorry for the long post.

buy it yourself turn up heavy handed leave with bike
Attend police station INSIST they do something – say things like – is this what you would be doing now were its your young daughters bike etc

Hassle them then do what you need to do to get your property back* – within the law I am not in anyway suggesting the use of bombers or violence to achieve this

If you take Junkyard’s advice about acting as if a buyer I suggest you carry evidence of ownership of the bike.

poor service from the police, sadly.

1) make a formal complaint, ask to speak to the duty inspector (who handles complaints). No doubt they will pass it to the sergeant in charge of the officer, who will kick their arse out of the nick to go deal with it. By which time your daughter’s bike might have gone.

2) arrange to buy the bike, meet the seller and as soon your hands are on the bike call the police. As it’s an offence allegation with the offender still on scene (and obviously you’re worried that he’s going to kick off and get violent, aren’t you) it should then get graded as an immediate response. Once the bike is recovered and the offender dealt with, then go the complaint route to give the officer a kick up the arse.

They should be arresting him so they can search his house, it’s probably full of stolen bikes and bits.

(I’ve got 15 years in the job, and there are currently half a dozen nice bikes in the rear yard of our station that have come from the same house search)

Thanks Junkyard. Unfortunately she lives away from home, is a young woman and has no burly friends.
I know the police are busy, but bike theft is a huge problem and this stinks of someone who does this regularly. It appears to be an ideal opportunity for the police to catch what appears to me to be an organised gang. If only she could arrange to buy it and have the police officer accompany her.
The police could do with a dedicated bike theft team IMHO.

Go to buy the bike and ask for a test ride…

“If you take Junkyard’s advice about acting as if a buyer I suggest you carry evidence of ownership of the bike.”

She has recent photos and a photograph of the serial number.

2) arrange to buy the bike, meet the seller and as soon your hands are on the bike call the police

Thanks Crashtestmonkey: having seen his picture on Facebook, I think she’s concerned she’d not live long enough for the police to arrive 🙁

Gauss 0 where is she as I’m sure theres a few of us on here willing to go and buy it….

Thanks hammyuk. I’m not sure she’d want you to lose your life either. As she tells me, she has plenty of friends, but none are street fighters. I’ll hold off saying where, as maybe (highly unlikely: as as my daughter says, who steals a bike and puts it straight on gumtree?) he’s reading this – I wouldn’t want to thwart the polices’ sting.

Sadly, this is an all too familiar story and there isn’t a straight forward answer.

If the thief (or handler) has anything about him then the bike won’t be at the advertisers address. It’s worth the officer looking at the pics of the bike in the ad for any distinguishing features in the background (garden features/distinctive furniture etc) as we have identified the sellers true location a few times that way.

The cops can go to the address and if they get an answer at the door, they arrest the occupant and search the address. If there’s no answer and no obvious sign of life then they will need to apply for a warrant at court.
They can of course apply for one first, providing they can satisfy a magistrate that they know where the bike is at that time.

If the officers are to try to arrange to view and buy it then this isn’t something your friendly neighborhood Bobby will be allowed to do as it’s governed by a wonderful piece of legislation called RIPA. Look it up if you suffer from insomnia – it’s basically what governs all aspects of covert policing. This is highly unlikely to be given the go ahead unless the bike is of very high value or the offender is known to be a repeat offender. And in my force it is highly unlikely that the officers authorised to do this work, would be available at a weekend for this type of case.

The officer dealing with this may not even know where to start with this type of investigation. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just not as straight forward as you may think but it shouldn’t stop you from complaining about it.

Good luck.

Edit: a bike theft team – we briefly had such a thing in my area. It was bloody successful too. That was before we lost almost 2000 officers in 4 years.

Thanks Bregante, that is good to know: as in it’s helpful to understand, although very frustrating. I am 99.5% certain it’s her bike, but without seeing the serial number I couldn’t be 100%, so I’d worry they’d arrest him and it not be her bike. Thieving looks easy 🙁 SCUM!

🙂 🙂 🙂
Thanks everyone – she has her bike back!
Looking for a decent photograph of the bike yesterday, I came across a photograph I had taken the day I got the bike, of the bike turned upside down and of the serial number. From what she says it was this (and her pestering them) that persuaded the police to go around and attempt to get it back. Which they did 🙂
I’m now going to go and photograph all my bikes serial numbers!

Good news indeed, it’s crazy anyone can nick something (doesn’t have to be a bike) put it on gumtree and pretty much get away with it, even if the police are told.

Great news! Well done.

Good to hear.

good news

I’m now going to go and photograph all my bikes serial numbers!

and get them all on immobilise.com and/or bikeregister.com

Great news, so pleased she got her bike back. This happened to my son a few years back, he pretended to be a buyer and arranged to meet the thief and insisted the police turn up, which they did. It was so satisfying to not let them get away with it, you must feel exactly the same.

Thanks. I hope now they found half a dozen other bikes and more people get theirs back. It’s a nice feeling – which is kinda strange as she, her mother and I have had a crappy 24 hours. It’s also going to be missing the mudguards, rack, Garmin mount, light mounts etc

Really good news, one thing that strikes me nowadays is that bike theft has always been an issue but now thieves advertise their ill gotten gains more easily, which perversely makes it easier to track your bike down.

and get them all on immobilise.com and/or bikeregister.com

What is the benefit of this? And both or either? (Thanks)

She just got her bike back. Apparently they found half a dozen others there as well, so hopefully there will other owners happily reunited in the near future!

Gauss – immobilse.com is linked to the same database the police use to id property.
So any serial numbers, id stickers, etc that are on there link straight back to the database, owners details, etc with pics, specific marks, features.

Years ago the government created (with industry support) the National Mobile Phone Register as they realised phone thefts would become a huge issue. Once the database was built they expanded it to cover everything and it became Immobilise. Bike register is a commercially developed equivalent.

Police crime databases are internal within forces- if your bike was nicked and found in another force area (which might only be the next town) they would have no record of it. They should, however, check Immobilise and bikeregister (which have police-only portals), in which case they would.

meanwhile the industry quietly implemented the EIR which was already embedded in standards, and promptly moved away from ‘noddy’ (their view) databases…

Great news!