Surrey Police Fail

Surrey Police Fail
John Moss
By John Moss
August 3, 2015

So on your average week I’ll be contacted by a few people who have been fortunate enough to have found their bike for sale but the police aren’t being as helpful as they could be. That’s business as usual for me and we have a few tricks up our sleeves to encourage the police to act but one case that occurred last week really stood out for me as a demonstration of why services like mine are needed and how big of a let down the police can be (once again their are fantastic officers in nearly every force but occasionally the system really lets victims of crime down).

The text of our email exchange is below, some details have been removed to protect identities. Essentially Surrey Police failed to connect a found bike to a reported theft even though it was found less than 100 yards from the original crime scene and the owner provided a frame number.

Email

Dear John,

 

I found a condor bike in a hedge a month ago. its worth thousands of pounds and the lock and tool kit were still intact, so it was obviously stolen
I took the bike home for safe keeping and contacted surrey police who refused to collect it. I therefore made a found-property report and was told that the police would check their records and contact me if it was reported lost/stolen.

 

Having  heard nothing for a month, yesterday I went to condors in central London and attempted to trace the owner via the frame number. This was not possible, but they recommended your site.
I looked at your site today and found that the bike had been reported stolen via a local shed burglary the day before I found it and the police had failed to put two and two together (no surprise there”). I contacted the owner via your site today and the good news is that he is coming collect it within the next hour.

 

Well done to your site

 

Regards
REMOVED

———–

Hi <REMOVED>,

 

That’s fantastic, which service did you use and could you give me the frame number?

 

We need results like this to show the police that our services are useful.

 

Kind Regards,
John

———————————

Stolen-bikes.co.uk And the frame number was ct071955

 

He was very happy to collect his bike and bought me a good bottle of champagne

 

Surrey police phoned me yesterday to tell me that they had not been able to trace the owner (you couldn’t make it up) I told them that it had been stolen the previous evening 100 yds from where I found it. I even gave her the crime reference number

 

Sent from my iPhone

  • Guest

    Ive begged and pleaded with my local police to do something, anything, to recover my stolen bike. Thanks to my hounding them repeatedly to collect it, they have cctv footage from outside the store it was stolen from. I also found the bike for sale 3 weeks after the theft, thanks to an alert on this site. The police told me ebay would provide them with the address of the seller so the bike could be recovered, but they sat back and did nothing at all. Someone purchased the bike, and the police closed the file on it (for the third time in 3 weeks… They can’t wait to do nothing!) I did all the investigations myself, and still, the police didnt lift a finger to follow up on anything, so my property got stolen and sold right under their noses, and they seem quite ok with that. Absolutely abysmal. Hampshire police didnt even seem aware of this site.

  • Graham Coult

    Thanks to your site a member emailed me that someone was selling my bike on eBay, 4 months after being nicked. eBay’s policies and the law prevent them getting involved, and the Surrey police have been made aware yesterday. Although I’m not expecting too much. This is really frustrating as loads of bikes are being nicked for quick profit, and it’s sucks up so much time sorting insurance, reporting crime. It’s still on ebay, it’s even got my name spray painted on the downtube. Kudos to the site and it’s participants for doing the leg work, but to seems impossible to close the loop and get the bike back.