A family has been left ‘devastated’ after ‘brazen’ thieves stole a bike from a car port outside their home.

Three people were caught on a security camera approaching their property and shining a torch seemingly looking for the bike - one was 'wielding huge bolt cutters'.

A second video then shows a bike being removed from outside the front of the property near Preston, Weymouth.

Carole Collins, who was at home with two young children at the time of the incident, said the electric bike was purchased second-hand for £3,000, and had been completely ‘hidden, covered and securely locked’ on Monday, November 21 when it was taken shortly after 9pm.

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She said: “They obviously knew what they were looking for. It wasn’t until the next morning that we noticed. I did the school run as usual and when I came back just spotted the covers had been moved and that was when we realized that the bike had been taken. 

“It doesn’t feel to me as though they just stumbled across the bike, they came with bolt cutters so it wouldn’t have mattered how we secured the bike, they knew what they were after.”

Mrs Collins said she had been left feeling “helpless” and that her youngest child had been left unable to sleep alone.

She said: “I’m just so angry about it, at how brazen they have been. We live in such an idyllic neighbourhood, tucked away, and we’ve never had anything like this before. I have lived here for 18 years and it’s shocked me, it really has: I’ve never felt as unsafe as this.”

The bike, Mrs Collins explained, was important to her teenage son who suffers from Loey's-Dietz Syndrome - a rare genetic connective tissue syndrome. 

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She said: “It has been such a massive part of our lives, especially for my son, because it has given him the freedom to exercise and not worry about his illness. It’s devastating and, obviously, to those that took the bike it just has a monetary value but for us it is so much more.”

A spokesperson for Dorset Police said: "Between 9.09pm and 9.13pm on Monday 21 November 2022 it is reported that an electric bike was stolen from an address in the Preston area of Weymouth.

"Enquiries are ongoing into the report. No arrests have been made.