Recovery Description

I saw an ad on gumtree (in the area where it was stolen) which looked exactly like my bike. Since it is a quite common bike, I went to meet him and checked the frame number to be sure. It turned out to be my bike and told the seller that I am calling the police. He claimed he bought it on brick lane market and walked away, offering me to follow him to his house. I declined planning to wait for the police. I was somewhat disappointed by the police. I called 999 saying it was an emergency but it took 5min to actually talk to someone. When someone finally was able to talk, I was explained that I should just call police the next morning to update the status of my crime report. They did not seem interested at all in catching anyone or the fact that I might be in danger (after all, the guy might be back with 5 friends every second). In the end I convinced her to take down details of the potential thief (I have his phone number, a good description and the rough location of his house) and I hope they will investigate this. I was also told that it was extremely stupid and dangerous to do this myself and only call the police afterwards. I therefore don't recommend this to anyone. However, having read some stories about how little police cares about this and the fact that they did not even send someone in my case even though I told them I just found my bike and the potential thief is still present (walking away though), this is probably the only way to get back the bike.