JUST 1.5 per cent of bike thefts in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole result in someone being charged, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Data sourced after an FOI request revealed that only 26 incidents of bike theft resulted in a criminal being charged despite 1,680 thefts being reported in the conurbation between April 2021 and April 2023.

Out of the 810 cases reported from April 2021 and the end of the year, no suspect was identified in 730 of them.

The following year, of the 764 reported incidents, 644 investigations were completed without a suspect.

In the first three months of 2023, 78 per cent of cases had this result.

The data indicates a drop in the number of bike thefts across the two years, with 106 reported cases in the first three months of this year.

Primera Sports bike shop director, Joe Temple, said the shop regularly sees customers coming in after their bike has been stolen.

“Some weeks it's everyday, other weeks it's every other day,” Joe said.

“We have people coming in who’ve had their bikes stolen from the garage or stolen from where they’ve been locked out away from the house.

“We see it on quite a regular basis.”

Bournemouth Echo: Joe Temple, director at Primera Sports.

He said that usually the customer has had insurance but he said that most have their bikes stolen despite security measures being in place.

“Nine out of ten times they’ve got insurance in place, they’ve got the right locks, they’ve been locked in the right way,” he said.

Joe said the problem had been getting worse.

“If you took it from four years ago, it is definitely been progressively getting worse since then,” he said.

“Back then we might hear of one every month or so, but now it’s much more of a weekly or daily occurrence."

The business director said many customers feel they have been followed or spotted when they are out on their bikes, and followed back to their homes where their bikes are then taken.

“We had one customer who knows for a fact that he’s been followed, and he believes they put a tracker on his vehicle,” he said.

“He went for a ride in the New Forest and there was the same vehicle parked there on a daily basis, and he believes there was a tracker put on the vehicle and tracked to the house, so they knew where the bikes were and within a couple of weeks they were taken.”

Bournemouth Echo: Primera Sports and its new Haibike store.

Primera Sports has been targeted itself, with an attempted break-in taking place at its shop in Charminster in December.

Joe said if it wasn’t for a neighbour calling the police, the thieves would have been successful.

He added that now the store is prepared for the potential threat, and that discussing insurance-approved locks is now a part of the process in selling bikes.

The Echo has spoken to Dorset Police and others impacted by bike theft in the area, with further articles to come next week.

Chief Inspector Darren Harris, of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole police, said: “We recognise the impact bike thefts have on our residents and our local policing teams work with partners to raise awareness, offer crime prevention advice and run bike tagging events to help people protect their bicycles.

“We welcome any reduction in thefts but we would continue to urge members of our communities to ensure they take simple steps to keep their bikes safe and make it harder for opportunistic thieves to steal them."