Melksham Police update – Lock your bikes!

THE most recent trend we’ve seen over the last fortnight has been an uptick in the number of theft offences reported to us.

In the last 14 days, we’ve received 29 reports of theft. Most of these relate to shoplifting, which is perhaps not entirely unexpected in a cost-of-living crisis?

Two reports however, relate to pedal cycles being taken. It feels like a timely reminder to bicycle owners, to lock your bikes when leaving them unattended.

Sticking with the theme of thefts; it hasn’t ventured to Melksham yet, but we’ve seen some recent instances of burglaries where motocross bikes have been targeted in Trowbridge. We’re putting a lot of time and effort into identifying those responsible, but there are some tips and tricks that will help owners from falling victim to these offences:

• If you’re selling a bike, be wary about handing out your address. Don’t make your address identifiable in your posts and check the profile of any prospective buyers, to make sure they’re not fake profiles with no post history. Meet them at a safe third-party location if you can.
• Secure your bikes and hide them from view. Offenders will cut through chains and force doors where they have to; but the louder they need to be, the more off-putting it is.
• On occasions, offenders will follow people back from Motocross events. Be mindful of being followed when leaving such events.
• Make sure to record your serial numbers, both VIN and engine numbers, particularly if bikes aren’t road registered. Also, keep photos of the bike regularly updated and keep lists / photos of any ‘trick bits’ you fit to the bike. We’re aware of at least 40 Motocross bikes that we’ve recovered, but can’t identify an owner for.
• Consider using marking equipment like Datatag, Alpha Dot, or concealed Apple Airtags on your bikes. It massively increases your chances of recovering anything if it’s stolen. Your insurance companies will thank you for some of these items too.

In other news, we obtained a conviction this week for an individual who’s been persistently terrorising their neighbours for quite a sustained period of time. They were fined a total of £1,412 following a conviction for criminal damage, assault and breach of a community protection notice.

I’m not naming names in this instance because I don’t want to inadvertently identify the victims, but it’s a good example of what can be achieved with long-term neighbour issues where there’s demonstrable criminal behaviour.