Bike Theft & Police

There is quite an interesting article on the Police in the City of London on the LCC site: http://www.lcc.org.uk/documents/pg%2012-13%20police%20longer%20feat.pdf

Anyway, one useful tip is to register bikes on the free website Immobilise (https://www.immobilise.com/register.ikml?id=1237), i.e. so if your bike is nicked you can get it back if recovered. Seems like a good idea, and I wondered if anyone bothers with it?

Immobilise is supposed to be quite good, however, maybe I got the wrong end of the stick though, I thought you registered your stolen bike or whatever after the fact not before?

You register your stuff before it goes missing so that they can get it back to you, apparently.

I think, if you had the details, you could register missing stuff as well for the same reason.

I like the advice in the article about Brick Lane, however what I cannot understand why every week there are people out there selling "stolen" bikes. Surely it must be the same people each week? I just wonder why there aren't more raids. It just seems a bit wrong that it is common knowledge that there are nicked goods there. E.g. you don't have an area of London where you can regularly get a stolen TV, nor would it be tolerated I suspect.

a thief doesn't stop to check if your bike is registerred before he nicks it, so it's totally pointless and a complete waste of police resources, they could be used shutting down the fences in Brick Lane...if you remove the distribution and market the thieves won't be able to sell them on and will have to nick summink else.....however this involves actual police officers coming face to face with actual criminals....something the Met aren't particularly good at....and why should they when they can pretend they're doing something about it instead?

ads I cannot understand why every week there are people out there selling "stolen" bikes. Surely it must be the same people each week?

Because people buy them. Supply and demand, innit. If people didn't buy stolen bikes...

ads I just wonder why there aren't more raids. It just seems a bit wrong that it is common knowledge that there are nicked goods there. E.g. you don't have an area of London where you can regularly get a stolen TV, nor would it be tolerated I suspect.

You, me and everyone know that the bikes are probably stolen - but the police have to be able to prove it. As the majority of bikes stolen (something like 90%) are never reported, this leaves the police in a difficult position - they suspect a crime (receiving stolen goods) has taken place, but they can't prove it. It's up to the people that are the victim of the crime to report it.

I agree if the demand wasn't there the bikes would disappear, however the police crack down on other openly illegal activities such as fake DVDs, you often hear about boot sales being raided for this stuff, however, as you say it is much more difficult to identify stolen bikes....

Perhaps this is why this database register is a good idea. At least the police could check frame numbers and make the criminals a bit more uncomfortable. Might put people off too.

It would also be good to see some sort of public campaign about it, i.e. highlighting the legal implications to buyers of stolen property.

I guess at the end of the day this is low priority for the MET, what with all those terrorists about ;0)

are terrorists nicking bikes now, is there no end to their evil doings....

Yeah I heard someone put a Jihad out on the Langster.

that was flickwg, he stole the crutches from a wounded jihadi.

And made them into his seatpost...

bin ladenger

i think there's a historic reason traders in Brick Lane market are allowed to sell things that in other markets would be stopped - i heard the explanation but can't remember why.

I've registered my bikes through Immobilise - it only takes a minute or two to do it; you just enter the frame number and a description. It has not however helped me to get either stolen one back. The police love it only because if they nick someone, they can prove some of their gear was stolen. Same reason they're trying to get everyone to register their phone's IMEI number.

Hi,

what about, it you see your stolen bike on brick lane market?

Are the MET able to help you to get the bike back or do you have to prove
its your bike or do they not bother to come around?

Has anyone any experience with that

thanks for your response :-)

you just need your serial numbers that you got from the frame (should be on the recipe when you brought your bike).

other than that, there's thousand of information regarding stolen bike, do a quick search.

are terrorists nicking bikes now, is there no end to their evil doings....

Yeah, apparently they are big fans of this band http://www.myspace.com/tbiapb

I had a stolen bike recovered by the police once, I gave them a detailed description and a few weeks later it had been found dumped in a ditch. Shortly afterwards it was stolen from the same shed again, the scum obviously thought I'd have a replacement bike to nick by then, it was never recovered the second time.