I’ve now been the victim of cycle related crime three times in my life. The first involved a stolen tandem in Kyrgyzstan taken from outside a yurt while we camped. That resulted in a happy reunion with the bike thanks to the excellent and thorough detective work of the Kyrgyz police force (we even had to sign a statement with words to that effect). The second was a brazen ‘hop-on-and-ride-off’ snatch from a few metres behind me while I was on someone's doorstep in Warndon. My cargo bike disappeared while I tried and failed to run after the thief and was never seen again.

Most recently, on an evening out in town, I parked my bike up in the excellent Crowngate bike storage, diligently locked it to Kirsty’s, and each of us clicked our wheel locks shut. After a lovely meal chatting all things cycle touring with Bike Worcester’s next world travelling couple we returned to our bikes. They were safely where we left them but something wasn’t right with mine. After a moment I realised that the light mount was missing. I’d usually take the light off but leave the mount on the bike so I padded down my pockets expecting to find the light and mount tucked away together. When the search drew a blank I realised what had happened; in our rush to get to the meal I must have left the light attached and an opportune thief had taken it. A quick scan of everyone else's bikes revealed that Sam’s computer mount had also been lifted.

A very pleasant evening quickly ruined.

But this is the Crowngate Secure Parking Area so I was curious to see whether the act had been caught on camera. The next day I called the main office and explained what had happened. I was told they would look through the footage of the evening and see if they could spot the culprit. Sure enough, 30 minutes later I was called back and told that they could see the miscreant at work. As well as the light and computer mount, someone's mudguard was also pinched.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t the crime of the century and knowing how stretched the police resources are I was in two minds whether to take it further. But eventually I decided to log it on the West Mercia Police website just in case they were able to take it further but expecting that to be the last of it.

Two days later an officer called me and said he was about to go and collect the CCTV footage. By the afternoon he called back to say that the footage clearly showed the culprit and he would put his image on the Police intranet to see if anyone recognised him. A few days later I had a call to say they had someone in custody in connection with the crime and could I come in to give a statement, which I duly did. Up to this point everyone involved in the process had been incredibly helpful and gone above and beyond my expectations.

It turns out that the light-fingered opportunist had been arrested for several crimes including the bike store raid. Although not all of the other incidents would have enough evidence for a prosecution there were enough that did to make the officer think that he was going to get convicted. My report was going to play an important part in the case as the CCTV footage was particularly damning. If this means that other people will be protected from being victims of this person’s crimes then it makes it all worthwhile.

The officer was keen to point out that they were always very impressed with the Crowngate security system so if there is an incident, however small, then it is worth reporting it to the Police. Hopefully you won’t need to make use of this information but it’s reassuring to know just in case.

I for one will continue to use the Crowngate bike store whenever I ride into town, always with secure locks and remembering to remove any accessories. Whether I’ll ever see the light again remains to be seen but if the Worcester Police are anywhere near as good as their counterparts in Kyrgyzstan then it’s entirely possible!