Merseyside bike theft prevention project wins national award

Merseyside Police has won a national award for its response to tackling theft and robbery offences involving high-value bikes. 

The National Acquisitive Crime Reduction Awards were held in Staffordshire on Tuesday 9 July, during the National Cycle & Acquisitive Crime Conference.

Among the nominees was Constable Pippa Wilcox from Merseyside Police’s Prevention Hub, who took home the ‘Most Innovative Cycle Crime Reduction Project’ award.

In 2023, the force was seeing a significant increase in the number of bikes stolen through serious acquisitive crime offences, such as thefts, burglary, and personal robberies.

Police data highlighted that 80 per cent of acquisitive crime involved a bike or an e-bike, either being used as a mode of transport to commit an offence or being the item stolen itself.

To combat this, Pippa established a strong partnership with Bike Register to offer the public the opportunity to mark their bikes for free. Bikes are marked with a unique code and added to the national Bike Register database, making it easier for police to reunite stolen bikes with their owners. It can also act as a visible deterrent to would-be thieves as the bike is marked, making it more difficult to sell.

Alongside this, Pippa and officers from Local Policing promoted the use of Bike Register by visiting bike retailers in the region, to offer training and explain the benefits of marking bikes at point of sale.  

Free bike marking for all students transitioning from primary to secondary schools was also introduced.

The project has been led by Pippa in the Prevention Hub and Problem-Oriented Policing teams and was funded by Operation Target’s Serious Violence Prevention Fund.

Within the force, Pippa delivered training to hundreds of officers about the benefits of Bike Register. Officers are now encouraged to implement routine Bike Register checks during warrants and stop checks, with the goal to make stolen bikes “too hot to handle”.

Both bike theft and robbery offences have decreased by 41 per cent since the launch of the initiative in July 2023 (compared to 8 months prior).

One notable success of the project involved a stop check of a group of young people in Wirral. After checking the bikes on Bike Register, it revealed that one of the bikes was already registered and reported as stolen. Officers seized the bike and successfully returned it to its rightful owner.

A few weeks ago, a stop check on a male rider in Southport led to the discovery that it was a stolen bike. The bike had been marked with Bike Register, allowing officers to check the database and make contact with its rightful owner.

Constable Pippa Wilcox said: “This initiative demonstrates how working together with our partners and local communities, we can prevent crime.

“Thanks to the work of the Prevention Hub and officers across the force, we’ve been able to make a significant impact on bike theft and robberies, so being recognised nationally for this prevention initiative is a real honour.”

Inspector Alan McKeon said: “I cannot emphasise enough the importance of registering your bike on a trusted website like Bike Register. Not only does it mean there is a higher likelihood of us being able to return a bike if it has bene reported stolen, but it also gives us a greater opportunity to catch and convict offenders.

“With bike theft being a significant issue nationwide, statistically you are much less likely to be a victim of bike theft if your bike is registered so this project has delivered excellent prevention across the force also.”