Like a lot of crime the vast amount is probably actually done by a relatively small number of repeat offenders/career criminals and surely targeting those could have a significant effect on overall theft figures - until the next lot come onto the scene.
We had our car nicked in January (Brent) and the police closed the file in under two hours! About ten days’ later we got a penalty fine for its parking; so if the police and parking had shared data the car could easily have been recovered. So no the police do nothing at all about cars.
I'm increasingly convinced that if the Met thinks you have an insurance policy you can claim off, their attitude is "Here's a crime number, now bugger off."
And it means, for instance, that if someone breaks your window and you're a leaseholder, you end up out of pocket since you don't have your own buildings insurance and the freeholder won't let you claim on their policy.
And mine. I was amazed to get a call back from a police officer in May that they had just looked at the CCTV footage of the six bikes stolen from our building's garage and had passed the images on to other units. The theft was in January.
My neighbourhood is being targeted. We've had an ongoing series of break-ins to garages and bike stores. They're organised with saws and vans, come back repeatedly and don't even bother covering their faces! My new bike was stolen after I'd only had it 2 weeks, and the police closed the case the day after I reported it.
Combined with the ineptitude of our apartment management companies failing to fix things quickly or provide adequate security, it's an incredibly depressing situation.
I commuted from Oxford to Bedford square for a while in the 80s. I could store my bike at Paddington station in a nice, overlooked location and cycle from there to work and back.
Now back in London forty years later, there is *still* nice (even nicer), overlooked bike parking at Paddington station. As far as I know, there is nothing similar at other London stations.
Culture endures, gets passed on.
Paul H
PS anyone know of any nice, overlooked bike parking near Finsbury park station?
There's a TfL / spokesafe bike store just across the road from Finsbury Park station, for a small daily or annual fee -- can't vouch for its security but it does exist
Another solid piece of writing! Yet again exposing the reality that neither our mainstream press nor the majority of our politicians are prepared to talk about, let alone tackle.
The juxtaposition of your headline and these statistics (which we know are grossly underestimating the level of crime as most Londoner's have already realised there is no point in reporting this to the police) and this weeks story of the allocation of five police officers to arrest a middle-aged man at Heathrow for some tweets - really does showcase everything we need to know about just how out-of-touch our politicians are with what really matters to the general public.
I do not blame the police officers themselves, they have to uphold the laws that are set, I blame the politicians, from the local councillors upwards - all so caught up with their grandstanding on what they think are the major issues.
Our politicians need to get back to basics and spend more of their time and focus and our tax-payers money on improving what actually affects the majority of the population - combating petty theft, making streets safe, fixing potholes etc.
Similar theft problems affected motor scooters (old-fashioned Vespa type) a decade ago. It became clear that *none* of the locks on the market could resist the hand-held angle grinders that thieves now have.
I use a angle-grinder-proof Hiplok D1000, a snip at a mere.... £200+ (ouch) but it's done enough to ensure I never worry about locking up my bike while out reporting for London Centric, wherever I am in the capital.
I actually think it's basically immoral to be selling people cheap bike locks in London now, spending £40 on a D-lock is effectively useless if a thief wants it.
I had the same, but after thieves broke into our bike store in the garage of our apartment, they simply sawed into the metal of the bike store itself and took it with lock attached. The lock is only as good as what is locked to!
Really think the police using some bait bikes with trackers would be a great solution to tracking thieves
City of London police, with their tiny size and different pressures, are always an interesting alternative case study to the Met. They had some success with this approach. This was way back in 2020 - and I haven't heard of any similar cases since: https://www.itv.com/news/2024-02-26/a-police-sting-uncovered-130000-worth-of-stolen-bikes-and-cut-thefts-by-90
Like a lot of crime the vast amount is probably actually done by a relatively small number of repeat offenders/career criminals and surely targeting those could have a significant effect on overall theft figures - until the next lot come onto the scene.
There is a guy in Oxford, Martin Shaba, who has so many stolen bicycles in his garden it's visible on Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/HZaNS3kMuery4QAh8
He was convicted in 2023, immediately went back at it. Last month he was given a suspended jail sentence for GBH for assaulting a man taking back his own bike: https://road.cc/content/news/bike-thief-who-attacked-cyclist-over-stolen-bike-avoids-jail-315311
The bikes remain! Madness.
I do wonder what the equiviliant police rates are for car thefts? Are they being particularly bad for bike thefts or just generally rubbish?
We had our car nicked in January (Brent) and the police closed the file in under two hours! About ten days’ later we got a penalty fine for its parking; so if the police and parking had shared data the car could easily have been recovered. So no the police do nothing at all about cars.
I'm increasingly convinced that if the Met thinks you have an insurance policy you can claim off, their attitude is "Here's a crime number, now bugger off."
That was 100% my experience.
And it means, for instance, that if someone breaks your window and you're a leaseholder, you end up out of pocket since you don't have your own buildings insurance and the freeholder won't let you claim on their policy.
And mine. I was amazed to get a call back from a police officer in May that they had just looked at the CCTV footage of the six bikes stolen from our building's garage and had passed the images on to other units. The theft was in January.
From the map it looks like the entire boroughs of Hackney (plus Redbridge and Newham) may have been stolen too!
My neighbourhood is being targeted. We've had an ongoing series of break-ins to garages and bike stores. They're organised with saws and vans, come back repeatedly and don't even bother covering their faces! My new bike was stolen after I'd only had it 2 weeks, and the police closed the case the day after I reported it.
Combined with the ineptitude of our apartment management companies failing to fix things quickly or provide adequate security, it's an incredibly depressing situation.
I commuted from Oxford to Bedford square for a while in the 80s. I could store my bike at Paddington station in a nice, overlooked location and cycle from there to work and back.
Now back in London forty years later, there is *still* nice (even nicer), overlooked bike parking at Paddington station. As far as I know, there is nothing similar at other London stations.
Culture endures, gets passed on.
Paul H
PS anyone know of any nice, overlooked bike parking near Finsbury park station?
There's a TfL / spokesafe bike store just across the road from Finsbury Park station, for a small daily or annual fee -- can't vouch for its security but it does exist
https://www.spokesafe.com/finsbury-park
ta
Another solid piece of writing! Yet again exposing the reality that neither our mainstream press nor the majority of our politicians are prepared to talk about, let alone tackle.
The juxtaposition of your headline and these statistics (which we know are grossly underestimating the level of crime as most Londoner's have already realised there is no point in reporting this to the police) and this weeks story of the allocation of five police officers to arrest a middle-aged man at Heathrow for some tweets - really does showcase everything we need to know about just how out-of-touch our politicians are with what really matters to the general public.
I do not blame the police officers themselves, they have to uphold the laws that are set, I blame the politicians, from the local councillors upwards - all so caught up with their grandstanding on what they think are the major issues.
Our politicians need to get back to basics and spend more of their time and focus and our tax-payers money on improving what actually affects the majority of the population - combating petty theft, making streets safe, fixing potholes etc.
Similar theft problems affected motor scooters (old-fashioned Vespa type) a decade ago. It became clear that *none* of the locks on the market could resist the hand-held angle grinders that thieves now have.
I use a angle-grinder-proof Hiplok D1000, a snip at a mere.... £200+ (ouch) but it's done enough to ensure I never worry about locking up my bike while out reporting for London Centric, wherever I am in the capital.
I actually think it's basically immoral to be selling people cheap bike locks in London now, spending £40 on a D-lock is effectively useless if a thief wants it.
I had the same, but after thieves broke into our bike store in the garage of our apartment, they simply sawed into the metal of the bike store itself and took it with lock attached. The lock is only as good as what is locked to!
London. Own nothing, and what you got gets robbed.
of COURSE it’s Hackney!
Killer headline! Well done. Know two people who had a phone knicked in broad daylight last week.