You're more likely to win a lottery prize than catch a London bike thief
Plus: Prince Charles Cinema building expected to be redeveloped, King's Cross canine protester, and the house where you can stare at your car from your office desk.
You’re now more likely to win a cash prize on the National Lottery than see a bicycle thief caught in the capital, according to new crime figures seen by London Centric.
As a result Londoners are increasingly taking bike recovery efforts into their own hands — or paying private companies to rescue their belongings when the Met police don’t have the resources to do so.
Scroll down to find out which borough has the highest bicycle theft rates — and what can be done about it. But first, some other news from across London.
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Asif Aziz’s redevelopment of Prince Charles Cinema building recommended to go ahead.
Westminster council officials on Tuesday recommended landlord Asif Aziz’s plans to redevelop the building above central London’s Prince Charles Cinema into a 213-bed windowless capsule hotel should be allowed to go ahead, although the cinema itself is safe for now.
A petition to save the venue — which currently occupies the basement and ground floor of the building near Leicester Square — received over 165,000 signatures in January amid allegations that Aziz was trying to “bully” the Prince Charles out of the building. The cinema has since said they hope to come to an arrangement for a new lease but will also be looking to open a new sister venue in Stratford.
The council officials warned that any future proposal by Aziz’s company to redevelop the cinema itself “would likely be resisted in the strongest possible terms”. Their planning report also recommended that noisy construction be limited to mornings between 8am and midday, to avoid disrupting the cinema’s afternoon screenings.
Aziz has been a regular feature in London Centric over the past year. His Criterion Capital company has persistently rented out shop units to tax-evading Harry Potter shops, is engaged in an ongoing dispute with the Picturehouse Central cinema, and has leased cockroach-infested flats in Croydon.
Criterion also bought the building previously home to the world’s oldest YMCA near Tottenham Court Road station. This week the enormous leisure complex was listed for rent without any details of expected price. Former YMCA members fear this is just a ruse to convince Camden council that the site is not economically viable, paving the way for the building to be converted into yet another windowless hotel.
London Centric has now learned that Aziz’s company has been linked to further dubious gift shop activities elsewhere in the UK, which we took the opportunity to pay a visit to over the summer. We’ll be bringing you more details of that soon.
Correction: An earlier version of this story wrongly suggested the plans had been given final approval. Instead, planning officers have recommended it for approval by councillors. We regret the error.
Preposterous property of the week.
Ever wondered what £10m gets you in London? This Knightsbridge house boasts a garden, swimming pool, and — most extraordinarily — a garage with a peephole window into the office. This way you can stare at your luxury supercar while sitting working at your desk — a feature missing in many lesser houses.
The four bedroom property near Hyde Park is currently owned by the company Etude Properties Limited, incorporated in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. According to Companies House and Land Registry documents the beneficial owner is a 51-year-old man called Eli Zakirov based in the tax haven of Monaco.
King’s Cross station dogged by protest.
London Centric was at the scene at King's Cross on Tuesday morning, after an anti-Iranian regime protestor scaled the station's 34m clocktower at 8am, together with a small dog. The pet, reportedly a Pomeranian, was rescued by firefighters on a cherry-picker after almost three hours of negotiations with the man, to scattered cheers from onlookers. The protestor came down in heavy rain just before noon, after several hours in which he appeared to argue with firefighters, shout down at onlookers, and post a video on Instagram. He was arrested by British Transport Police on suspicion of causing a public nuisance.
Alongside statements in Farsi, the man’s banner declared, "Freedom For Iran" and "Iran Belongs To Its People" — plus, in an apparent nod to the canine's presence, an icon of a dog with the phrase, "Dictators Fear Freedom, Even for Animals". The Iranian regime is famously hostile to dog ownership, and earlier this year banned dog-walking in cities including Tehran.
“Bike theft is practically legal”: How the Met police stopped catching bicycle thieves.
The Metropolitan police has only taken action against 0.6% of bike thieves this year — meaning you’ve now got more chance of winning a cash prize on the National Lottery than seeing a London bike thief prosecuted.
While 6,721 stolen bicycles were reported to the Metropolitan police between January and July, just 39 of the incidents have so far resulted in a “positive outcome” — such as someone being charged, prosecuted, or cautioned.
This means that if you reported a bike stolen to the Met police this year, there’s less than 1% chance of ever seeing the bike ever again, or even hearing of anyone being prosecuted for stealing it. That’s well below the odds of winning money when you buy a ticket for a Lotto draw.
According to figures seen by London Centric, action on bike theft reached a new low in February of this year when just four out of the capital’s 855 reported bike thefts resulted in a charge, prosecution, caution, or similar.
The numbers are likely to understate the real scale of bike theft in London, according to cycling campaigners. Many people don’t bother to inform the police that their bike has been taken, while other bike thefts from homes are classified as burglaries for statistical purposes.
“It’s depressing that there’s so little attention to it on the part of the police” said Tom Bogdanowicz, of the London Cycling Campaign. “This is undermining the growth of cycling.”
Bike theft is consistently held up as one of the main reasons why people give up on cycling in the capital, making people reluctant to buy or own a bike. Many readers have got in touch to say they increasingly turn to rental Lime e-bikes because it removes the fear of a bike getting stolen.
The theft figures were obtained by former Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Rob Blackie, who shared them with London Centric: “Like most London cyclists, I've had my bike nicked — it's infuriating and expensive. These figures expose years of Met neglect. With only one in a hundred cases solved, bike theft is practically legal. Thieves know this crime pays. Worst of all this encourages more crime in future. The mayor must fix the Met, starting with getting enough police to deal with the crimes that matter to Londoners. If we can catch more bike thieves, it means fewer crimes in future.”
London thieves have also become cannier at flipping high value bicycles, especially the cargo bikes that are increasingly popular with London families. London Centric has learned criminals have started faking invoices from legitimate local bicycle shops in order to convince well-meaning purchasers that a second-hand bicycle has a reliable provenance. The issue is usually only uncovered when the purchaser turns up at the original shop and seeks to have it serviced.
Cycle theft is concentrated in the Inner London boroughs such as Camden, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Southwark where cycling is most prevalent and commuters are most likely to leave their bikes locked up. Theft is one of the factors behind the extraordinary take-up of rental e-bikes in the capital, as Londoners using Lime or Forest don’t have to worry about finding their bike stolen at the end of a shift or a night out.
Bogdanowicz said the last significant improvement on this issue came when former mayor Boris Johnson, who had repeatedly had his own bicycle stolen, funded a specialist police taskforce to take on the issue.
“Even I cycle less because of thefts,” said the London Cycling Campaign adviser. “There are certain places where I know cycle theft is common and I’ll catch the bus or underground rather than cycle, simply because I know it’s not worth the risk. It’s depressing that that has to be the case.”
He set out a simple list of solutions to reduce bike theft in the capital:
Convince politicians and the Metropolitan police to allocate resources to the issue.
Set up a new taskforce to deal with theft.
Gather more accurate data on bike theft.
Introduce a mandatory nationwide cycle marking system as they have in France.
Introduce more secure cycling parking.
Educate the public that a little cable lock is a waste of time.
Require online outlets such as eBay, Gumtree, and Facebook Marketplace to flag the warning signs for a stolen bicycle.
Increase on-street police enforcement.
A spokesperson for the Met police said they have been carrying out extra patrols on high streets this summer: "We recognise the impact of bike theft and understand the disruption it has on victims. It is costly and can cause huge inconvenience. Please rest assured we will investigate all crimes which are reported to us, as well as carrying out extra patrols and operations across London as appropriate.”
Readers may recall that one of the bike thefts counted in the statistics from the past year is London Centric’s own — after which we were informed that, despite being able to use a tracker to locate it to a specific address, the police were unable to help. Following the publication of an article about the incident the police reopened the case and asked us to seek video doorbell footage from neighbours ourselves, only to close it again when we were unable to provide them with any identifying details of the thief.
If you want to get in touch with London Centric then message us on WhatsApp or email — or click below to leave a comment.
Really think the police using some bait bikes with trackers would be a great solution to tracking thieves
I do wonder what the equiviliant police rates are for car thefts? Are they being particularly bad for bike thefts or just generally rubbish?