Stolen bikes

Just found on Times Online

"A policeman was ordered to do 220 hours’ community service for selling stolen bicycles on the internet. Inspector David Humphrey, 41, of the Royal Parks Constabulary, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court, South London. He was found guilty of handling stolen goods and false accounting."

Guess the charmed life continues...

Just found on Times Online

"A policeman was ordered to do 220 hours’ community service for selling stolen bicycles on the internet. Inspector David Humphrey, 41, of the Royal Parks Constabulary, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court, South London. He was found guilty of handling stolen goods and false accounting."

Guess the charmed life continues...

Jeez, I bet he had trouble getting the smirk on his face out the door when he left the court!

Apart from the locks I use SmartWater on my bikes. Won't stop them being nicked but might help trace them and the scrotes involved.

Just seen your question Oliver. Can't actually remember, think I may have seen it mentioned on (ahem) Bike Radar.

Just found on Times Online

"A policeman was ordered to do 220 hours’ community service for selling stolen bicycles on the internet. Inspector David Humphrey, 41, of the Royal Parks Constabulary, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court, South London. He was found guilty of handling stolen goods and false accounting."

Guess the charmed life continues...

Link to the Times? I couldn't find the article. But I still have a feeling that this is a story from 2005?

Yes, but as I said, I think that this is a story from 2005.

I´d never heard about smartwater b4. seems nice, but you´ld still have to find your stuff in order to claim it back... so it helps only.

Ok we've recently had a few thefts from our car park at work (St Katharines Way) and it seems to be a gang of thieves, some of the guys I work with sit near the window that overlooks the car park - so we have been doing a bit of surveilance, taking pics etc. Police are pretty uninterested as usual - and the building landlord even less so - so although we havent caught them in the act yet, we are photographing them and making our presence felt - in the hope that we'll either catch them at it or maybe recover one of the bikes that has disappeared.
Because of the proximity to East London, it wouldnt suprise me if these bikes are being flogged at Brick Lane. We've so far had 7 go this year - lots have been locked up using shit locks, so I've attempted to warn everyone I see down there to use decent locks.
Anyway - here's some pictures of the suspects. One of the victims has actually confronted these kids and they pretty much laugh in his face - he's 6"5 and built like a brick shit house.

I think these guys are probably fairly active round East London, so keep em peeled people.

3 Attachments

I live 30 seconds away from there and have seen those kids about. Think they live further into Wapping and pop up to have a reccie.

Good work on the photos.

Yup had my Hardrock 24" stolen from the underground car park in St Katharine's Dock 25th June and saw the CCTV still photo of the little fucker who did it. He's been seen aroun the Dock riding a chunky MTB (probably mine) yesterday. He too stupid to sell the bike and will probably ride until it's broken.
So if anyone see a kid riding a large framed Specialized in Wapping that is probably my bike.

Will keep a look out for you. You got full description of bike / colour etc and what the little shit looks like ?

It looks pretty much like this one (but a more dark grey colour) with Topeak mudguards one, a broken silver bell, standard LED front and back lights and clippers unless the little fucker has taken them off. Cheers.

It's fucking huge as well - the kid will look very stupid on it I would imagine - so quite noticeable
@AFC67 have you still got the CCTV pic? Did you get it scanned in?

Cool will keep a look out...

The Facilities Manager at work has one picture but I am not sure if I am allowed to scan it in but will ask. Forgot to mention that the Specialized actually has mechanical disc brakes on.

there were a number of stolen bikes taken from the container at Preston Park a few days ago. there were a few fuji track's like the one below:

they are marked as property of PPYCC (preston park youth cycle club), so if you see any for sale please PM me to let me know.

also, the following was taken:

Kinesis omnium 54cm, white with black and red decals. It has black sprinter bars with black and white striped handle bar tape and a carbon stem. It, unusually, has a braze on the top of the down tube as a repair to the cracked frame. This has been painted a slightly different white. ‘Ant’ is written with a paint pen in pink on a couple of places on the frame. A flite titanium black saddle and carbon seat post. It has a new rim on the rear wheel with a Baker Street logo on it. the frame looks like this one:

there were a number of stolen bikes taken from the container at Preston Park a few days ago. there were a few fuji track's like the one below:

they are marked as property of PPYCC (preston park youth cycle club), so if you see any for sale please PM me to let me know.

also, the following was taken:

Kinesis omnium 54cm, white with black and red decals. It has black sprinter bars with black and white striped handle bar tape and a carbon stem. It, unusually, has a braze on the top of the down tube as a repair to the cracked frame. This has been painted a slightly different white. ‘Ant’ is written with a paint pen in pink on a couple of places on the frame. A flite titanium black saddle and carbon seat post. It has a new rim on the rear wheel with a Baker Street logo on it. the frame looks like this one:

This sucks, Preston Park is the road over from me, how many bikes got taken?

Been reading this thread and gettin pretty angry, i dont know how you guys put up with this level of bike theft. I live in belfast where bike theft is really low. From my experiance if it is locked up at all it will be ok. I do worry about my bike being damaged by some retard with nothing better to do tho. Usless post i know :)

Rememeber, quite a lots of bike that are stolen in this topic are poorly locked/use cheap lock/locked in a dodgy area, whether a handful of them were professionally stolen.

bicycle are a perfect item to steal, especially right now with people cycling instead of driving, if they get caught all they get is a slap on the wrist and go out stealing bicycle again.

Been reading this thread and gettin pretty angry, i dont know how you guys put up with this level of bike theft. I live in belfast where bike theft is really low. From my experiance if it is locked up at all it will be ok. I do worry about my bike being damaged by some retard with nothing better to do tho. Usless post i know :)

I agree with ed.

Yes the level of bike theft in London is high but if you look at some of the jokingly called "locks" that you see some bikes locked up with in Central London, you can only think it's a matter of time before that bike gets nicked.

People simply dont want to carry very heavy locks and chains about with them (which is understandable), so if you lock up with two beefy locks (i use a fug mini and an abus granite x plus when locking up in central London) my personal opinion is your a huge amount less likely to get your ride stolen, simply because there is an almost limitless supply of much easier targets. The way i see it is you've paid several hundreds of pounds for your bike, you wouldn't leave a cash box with the equivelent amount of money in it locked to a railing with a flimsy lock would you.

The majority of bike theft's are crime's of opporunity. AFC67's didn't say exactly how his hardrock was stolen (I'm only mentioning you AFC67 because your bike was the last one posted here apart from the bike from preston park which are a slightly different situation) but i'm guessing the kid who nicked it didn't use a power tools or a set off 4ft bolt cutters and found an easy mark. I dont think there are a huge amount of proffessional bike theft gangs in London.

why should you have to secure your bike with ridiculous amounts of hardware? Why should it be your fault that your bike gets stolen? The person who steals it is just the antisocial moron who is always at fault, who has the problem and sadly shouldnt have the thought "oo that would be an easy steal, I will have that".

Those cheap locks are fine (i would imagine) in places where you are just trying to secure your bike to stop some drunk wandering off with it, not trying to make it impregnable to an aerial bombardment like in london.

Re: datatagging and smartwater.

There's a datatagging horror-story somewhere earlier in this thread, someone went down to retrieve their stolen bike from BL and when the police called the tagging service it was shut. The bike then disappeared. Frame numbers should always be your first priority when you're retrieving a bike. Sorry that I can't be arsed to find the post.

why should you have to secure your bike with ridiculous amounts of hardware? Why should it be your fault that your bike gets stolen? The person who steals it is just the antisocial moron who is always at fault, who has the problem and sadly shouldnt have the thought "oo that would be an easy steal, I will have that".

Those cheap locks are fine (i would imagine) in places where you are just trying to secure your bike to stop some drunk wandering off with it, not trying to make it impregnable to an aerial bombardment like in london.

I completely agree with you. You SHOULDN'T have to lug massive amounts of steel around with you and it DEFINITELY isn't the owners fault if there bike get's stolen but were dealing with the reality of hundred's if not thousands of toerags with there eye out for the easy mark. It's fine taking the moral high ground of saying i shouldnt have to lock my bike up with 5lbs of steel but the reality is your bike wont' last too long if you don't.

As far as cheap locks go, again i agree there fine for just popping into a shop or stopping someone wandering off with it. I have a mini evo for this purpose if i know i am not going to be leaving my bike anywhere for more than 10 mins.
I live in Peckham and i once saw a beater locked with two cheapo coil locks on the main high street for a whole week 24/7 before it was stolen. As metioned most bike theives are lazy opportunists - just dont give em the opportunity

so to hear about your bike matee, i just finshed my first bike too to parnoid to leave it anywhere aleways by my side, i will keep my eyes peeled wide open matee.

hope you get it back

I suggest a cage be constructed high up on a pole in Trafalgar Square. Bicycle thieves are then locked up inside it and left to gradually starve to death, then rot in view of the public to serve as a warning to others - and perhaps create a macabre tourist attraction.

mid-90s custom titanium framed xc/hybrid stolen from jubilee wharf in penryn last night (left unlocked by idiot father).
spec as follows;
brooks b17 saddle, dmr saturn chainring, shimano hyperglide HG-50 11-32 8spd cassette, wipperman connex chain and mid 90s vintage shim xt deraillier. custom Ti frame with 'WB ambition' on the side, although it was just a sticker - easy to remove and something like 'ogden' as the headbadge (might be some other similair scandivian sounding name :s), although again just a sticker. I don't have the serial no. but it is hand engraved on the bb shell. the saddle is a brooks b17 on a nice alu seatpost, and it has acor moustach-y bars on a zoom stem. marzocchi 'xc600' forks.
The frame was rescued from being squashed, and i built the bike up for me 'ma, so she is mightily upset, as am I. Could y'all keep your eyes peeled in your local papers, booties and on ebay/craigslist etc?
thanks.

EDIT: would it be ok to give this it's own thread aswell?