Freed or Stolen?

[simon the viking]

Round the corner from our house a well used BSO full suspension Mountain bike has been chained up to a signpost for a full month!.... and has stayed complete for all this time.... it has fell over several times and been stood back up each time.... but today it has gone....

So assuming it was not taken by the person who locked it up (only an assumption I have no way of knowing) as they would have collected weeks ago has it been stolen or freed....

I was thinking of adding a jokey "Gnawed it self free" response but I genuinely want to know if people consider it stolen even if it was abandoned....

 

[classic33]

Theft by finding, at best.

 

[Crankarm]

Who knows, who cares; it's a BSO probably owned or was owned by a ninja chav, nicked by another ninja chav.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Freed.
Probably the owner came for it. Chain gone too?

 

[Jefferson Meriwether]

If the person who took it isn't the owner and they didn't have permission from the owner to take it then it's theft. The amount of time that a bike has been chained up is irrelevant. Having said that, if a bike's been abandoned then rightly or wrongly I personally wouldn't blame anyone if they took it and put it to good use.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

If it was a proper BSO maybe the weight was damaging the structural stability of the post was removed by the Council?

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Here's a photo I took in Brighton years ago:


Broken bikes, a Brighton signature by Andrew Culture, on Flickr

 

[simon the viking]

As O.P I feel the true answer is stolen but it was an eyesore...... I kept meaning to ring the council but kept forgetting.... I reckon its been took by unlincenced scrap collectors and they probably took the chain as well!

There was one locked up in town missing a front wheel (but tab washers were next to the bike) next day it hadnt a rear wheel either havent looked since!

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Reality bites

 

[DiddlyDodds]

If it was locked up its Theft .
Simple as that

 

[Cyclopathic]

It is a fair bit simpler than that. It is theft locked up or not.

But if it has just been abandoned isn't it fly tipping?

 

[Gravity Aided]

You favour a divergent Morlock and Eloi population?

No, I'm favoring Wings Over The World. (Oops, sorry, wrong story)

 

[Cyclopathic]

How would you know?

I'm not using this as a rationale for taking the bike. I'm just saying that abandoning bikes like this is a crime in itself. It clutters up the street and takes up space on a bike stand. Of the bikes regularly left around my area I'd be willing to bet £5.00, no £10.00 of my own hard earned money, that 99% of them have been abandoned deliberately.
They could at least donate them to a charity or give them away to some poor sod who can't afford even a rubish bike.