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news
Locked bikeDad turns detective to get daughter's bike back
A dad turned detective after his daughter’s bike was stolen, by tracking down the thieves on Facebook.
The perhaps appropriately named James Bourne decided to take matters into his own hands, when he discovered his 11-year-old daughter’s bike was missing from their Bedfordshire home.
Bourne, who lives in Kempton and owns a local laptop and phone repair company, managed to get hold of CCTV footage, and used Facebook to help friends identify the thieves from the images.
Beginner's guide to bike security—how to stop bike thieves and protect your bike
He told Bedfordshire News: "If it had been my bike I would have given it up as lost. But I saw how distraught Dana was and I didn't want to let the thieving gits get away with it.
"I obtained some CCTV footage, posted it on Facebook and it wasn't long before some friends messaged me with names. They were all in group pictures together on Facebook but they looked about 14 or 15."
So he decided to get in touch with the parents.
"One of them said they had seen it in their back garden and I got it back within the day," he said.
Bourne has raised the issue of a lack of secure bike storage at the Aldwyck housing association apartments where he lives, but says Aldwyck have not been forthcoming with a solution. Although the housing association told Bedfordshire News it ‘takes all incidents of theft extremely seriously’ it did not respond to questions from the paper about providing more bike storage.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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7 comments
Wonder how he got hold of the CCTV footage... having had two bikes stolen right next to cameras (which apparently didn't capture anything), I wouldn't have minded a look myself!
Exactly Hotspot
Probably not worth the aggro of having your windows broken etc. From his point of view, hopefully they'll just nick some other poor sod's stuff and leave him alone.
There's some scumbags near me and they're just a breeding factory of trouble. You get one put away and there's about 4 more to come up through the ranks and then you move onto friends and family of scumbags willing to cause trouble. Sadly they have to really kick off before the police are remotely interested.
Yeah they don't think about consequences, they just get miffed and lash out. Like kicking a dog, you can expect to get bitten.
Well that's the thing isn't it. He got his daughter's bike back but who knows how many other bikes are sitting in the back garden waiting to get sold on Gumtree.
Not like he owes the dodgy family a favour for giving him back the bike that they thieved.
He should do the right thing and shop them. Save more cyclists getting their bikes nicked.
So he decided to get in touch with the parents.
"One of them said they had seen it in their back garden and I got it back within the day," he said.
So, before this they saw nothing amiss with a strange bike turning up in their garden?
More parents not doing their fucking job. No wonder the scroats can get away with it.
Well played.
Maybe he should be a cop.
They're badly in need of people with basic investigative skills.