Psycolist
NINJA BYKALIST
- Location
- North Essex
Saturday evening, last weekend, a friend of my sons parks his bike outside work, chained to a lamp post, deliberately in view of a CCTV camera. Finishes his shift at 10, probably about 10-15 by the time he has got his coat and left work, just to find his bike gone with the cut lock chain laying on the floor. He carefully as possible put the lock into a carrier, thinking he is preserving any evidence, and takes a 5 minute walk to the Police Station to report the theft. On arrival, finds they are closed, with just a telephone to contact the police operator in Chelmsford some 35 miles away. As he goes to pick up the phone he sees a police car leaving the garage entrance at the side of the station. He runs towards the car waving at them to stop, which they do. He approaches the front passenger, who winds down his window the bare minimum of about 10mm, and the officer shouts through the crack for my sons friend to 'STAND BACK FROM THE CAR'. So, from a distance of about 5 feet, the lad has to tell the officer about his stolen bike, at which the bobby seems to relax a little and beckons the lad forward, but does not open the window any further. The lad tries explain that his bike has been stolen and that the theft would be on CCTV. The bobby tells him that the CCTV is irrelevant because the system is run by the council and not the police and there are all sorts of forms to fill in to get the footage released. The lad explains that he kept the cut lock as evidence for any DNA or cut pattern evidence to be assessed by the Scenes of Crime officers, only to be laughed at and told that he's got more chance of winning the lottery than getting Scenes of Crime to look at his 'evidence'. The bobby tells him to go back to the phone, get a crime number and claim off his insurance, and that its not a crime the police would waste their time investigating. The Police Officer then winds closed the 10mm gap and signals to the driver to move off. The lad does as advised, gets his crime number, and then rings dad to come and get him. Dad says that he is furious with the police, but that its pointless making a fuss because the local police will just mark their cards as trouble makers and that it is not worth claiming from the insurance as their excess is £300 and the bike didn't cost that much new. So it would appear that this town has been left totally open to anyone wishing to feather their nests by stealing bikes, that the owners of those bikes are going to be the losers, and that there is bugger all any one is prepared to do about it. Unfortunately, the family had not kept any records of frame numbers or any other such details, they don't even have a picture of the bike, but it seems it wouldn't have made any difference if they had. The Essex Police were simply not interested. This is on the back of a glut of similar thefts of bikes that have come to light, from street parking areas, that have taken place since the kids went back to school after the Christmas break. I now know of 5 people who have lost bikes in the last 10 days or so. I wonder what the thieves get for each bike, £10 - £15 to some middle man who then takes them to an auction or boot market a few towns away. I don't know what the answer is, but there should be some accountability for some action to be taken in these, what I accept to be minor crimes. I believe the same Police Authority recently told shopkeepers that due to lack of street officers, if they catch shop lifters, they are to either take them to the police station themselves, or get some ID from the thief and give those details to the police at a later time. I am not sure where this is going to end , but its certainly down a slippery slope, we just cant see what is at the bottom of that slope yet.
bike), stolen from the official work bike park (no cctv) along with a few others.
