A cyclist from Leeds has slammed the "absolutely disgraceful" thief who took his £1,700 bike while he lay injured in the road after being hit by a car.
Shane Fitzsimons, 55, suffered a broken wrist, arm, collar bone and rib when he was hit by a 4×4 in Bramley.
As he lay in the road, dazed and semi-conscious, his Saracen Ariel mountain bike was stolen.
He told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “It’s absolutely disgraceful. There are some people who, if you laid there long enough, would chip the gold fillings out of your teeth.”
The crash happened when Mr Fitzsimons, who works for an advertising company, was shopping on his bike.
A number of people stopped at the scene, but that didn't deter the brazen thief.
Mr Fitzsimons said: “As I was lying there in the road I saw this guy on the bike. I was in so much shock I couldn’t say anything and he rode off.”
The damage to his arm was sufficiently serious that he has not yet returned to work after the crash on August 25.
He believes the bike is still on the Broadlea estate.
“It’s important to me to get it back,” he said. “It’s worth nearly as much as my car.”
Sgt Mo Gother, of the inner west neighbourhood policing team, said: “It’s appalling that someone would steal a bicycle while its owner was lying seriously injured after a road traffic collision.
“We carried out extensive enquiries to try to trace the suspect but have been unable to identify him. CCTV showed a male wheeling the bike away up Broadlea Hill but the footage was not of sufficient quality to identify him.
“There were some names suggested initially for people who were said to have the bike but these were followed up and eliminated from the enquiry.
“Although some time has passed since the incident we would welcome any new information from the community about who took the bike or its current whereabouts.”
Sgt Gother can be contacted by calling the Leeds neighbourhood policing team on 101.
10 thoughts on “How low can you get? Callous thief steals bike from injured rider after car crash”
Shame there isn’t any better
Shame there isn’t any better photos of the bike as I live in Pudsey and drive trough Bramley a couple of times a week. So would keep an eye out for it.
Why do you need a 4×4 in
Why do you need a 4×4 in Leeds? Get them off the roads – they cause potholes, take up more space both moving and parked, and in the case of this chap, break bones.
‘Why do you need a 4×4 in
‘Why do you need a 4×4 in Leeds?’
Same as you need one anywhere, for mounting particularly stubborn kerbs.
andyp wrote:’Why do you need
people shaped
If his bike was stolen by a
If his bike was stolen by a scrote from the Broadlea estate. He will be lucky to see it again. I used to work around there and you had to lock and nail down anything whilst making a call to one of the houses!
CXR94Di2 wrote:If his bike
This +1………
Just shows the need for a
Just shows the need for a decent, all risks household insurance policy. Would’ve covered that and settled in no time at all and with no stipulations to have the bike locked up either.
Shouldn’t the insurance for
Shouldn’t the insurance for the 4×4 stump up the money for a replacement. After all if it wasn’t for the 4×4 he would still have been on his bike and not lying in the middle of the road.
What a F**kin C**t. I really
What a F**kin C**t. I really do hope karma intervenes and he ends up under the wheels of a 44 tonne artic!!
Dont want to get all Daily
Dont want to get all Daily Fail about it, but WTF!! But please don’t tar all the people who live in the area with the same brush. It is really important though that the community ‘out’ this thief, it is the only way – there will be at least one person who knows who the theif is. There is probably only half a police office to cover the whole area no doubt, so they will not be able to do anything.