Police failed to catch a bike thief in 87% of affected neighbourhoods between June 2019 and May 2022 — 20,900 of the near 24,000 areas where there had been at least one bike theft saw all cases closed without a suspect being identified or charged
The grim reality of the unlikelihood a bike theft victim will be reunited with their stolen bicycle has been outlined in an investigation by the Telegraph newspaper., the national broadsheet revealed that of the nearly 24,000 neighbourhoods to have suffered at least one bike theft in the last three years, not one case had been solved in 87 per cent , meaning all the cases had been closed without a suspect identified or charged.
At the bottom of the bike theft-solving charts was a neighbourhood in central and west Cambridge where not one suspect was identified or charged in all 406 cases. In 2020, at the start of the timespan of figures investigated by the Telegraph, James Sutherland, a superintendent of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, said that due to budget cuts and focusing on violent crime, the force was"The loss of focus means cycle thieves have become brazen, greedy and lazy," he said.