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news
Angle grinder bike thieves (Ben Derbyshire/Twitter)Cyclist fights off moped gang bike thieves armed with angle grinder
A London cyclist, confronted by four blacked-out bike thieves armed with an angle grinder who attempted to steal his Brompton outside a cafe in broad daylight, has told of how "depressing" the brazen attack was, advising others who are targeted to "make lots of noise and take loads of pictures".
Ben Derbyshire, an architect who is the former president of the Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA), told the Evening Standard he had been left "shaken" by the incident, which happened on Friday morning as he ate with his son and daughter at El Ganso cafe in Hackney.
I find myself in an altercation with angle-grinder wielding rustlers after my #Brompton. Fended off with the help of son & daughter and the proprietor of El Ganzo!
Lesson 1: In extremis make lots of noise & take loads of pictures.
Lesson 2: Swap Brompton for my tatty old Giant? pic.twitter.com/vm6tIUREp2— Ben Derbyshire PPRIBA FRSA HonAIA (@ben_derbyshire) May 12, 2023
Mr Derbyshire reported hearing "commotion down the street" as the two moped riders, each with a passenger on the back, came along "making a racket, revving and basically being as intimidating as possible".
They were all dressed in black and used an angle grinder to begin cutting through the D-lock on his daughter's bike in an attempt to get at his £2,500 Brompton, also locked to the rack outside the cafe.
Having run out to confront the gang, Mr Derbyshire quickly felt "in danger", ending up "rather pinned into position with a lot of bikes in front of me and people behind", meaning he "wasn't in a position to run away" if necessary.
Holding on to his bike, one of the thieves threatened him with the angle grinder, raising it towards his face, before the cafe's owner and Mr Derbyshire's son ran out to help as passers by filmed the incident.
"I think what happened was, from their point of view, it all got a bit too complicated so they chickened out," he said. "The proprietor of the restaurant came out immediately and was very supportive and very concerned and took our bikes in afterwards so we could finish our meals.
"I just think that's depressing and that they should be so aggressive about it. I mean, trying to intimidate me by, by pushing an angle, grinder into my face. That is not on."
Metropolitan Police attended the scene quickly, the cyclist reported, confirming that he was uninjured and able to cycle home. The police said there have not been any arrests, with witnesses who are yet to give information asked to call 101, ref 2586/12may.
Thieves wielding angle grinders and cutting through locks is far from a new problem, with footage of similar incidents sadly becoming all too common in UK cities. Last June, Labour MP Helen Hayes' bike was saved by a local councillor and staff working at a nearby restaurant after they spotted a thief cutting through the lock.
Just months earlier, a masked gang appeared unfazed by large crowds watching outside Surrey Quays shopping centre as they stole a Trek e-bike.
> Thieves use angle grinder to steal Trek bike locked outside busy shopping centre
In February, thieves stole a cargo bike parked next to a bikehangar in East Dulwich, a member of the council replying to a social media post about the issue to report he had suffered two electric cargo bikes stolen within the last year.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
Latest Comments
- pockstone 3 sec ago
Is failure to stop at the scene of an accident a crime? If so does the crime continue to be committed until the driver sees sense, returns and...
- S.E. 4 min 43 sec ago
Nah... too many white males, no diversity, women wear scarfs, and imagine the GDP if decades of transportation costs are less than an annual car...
- EK Spinner 6 min 15 sec ago
looking at the (admittadly poor) footage there doesn't look to be much slowing down going on, prior to the impact, i feel he was more likely...
- chrisonabike 10 hours 35 min ago
Another I'd missed last month:...
- andystow 10 hours 57 min ago
Wow! This is a place I go to a few times a year, but it's right across the parking lot from the pub I go to weekly.
- lonpfrb 11 hours 37 min ago
This administration has the opportunity missed by the previous one to join up the departments to address the fact that capable people just don't...
- stonojnr 12 hours 11 min ago
I'd question how did the driver heard the swearing to make such a complaint....
- mark1a 13 hours 8 min ago
Thankfully, there was a massive clue at the top of the article.
- john_smith 3 hours 31 min ago
"Not really - use of the word 'accident' implies that an incident was unavoidable."...
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62 comments
Sounds like you're safe if you're in Manchester then!
IIRC, unfortunately, "old fashioned" policing involved a lot of brown paper envelopes full of used notes and beating a confession out of the nearest Black or Irish person...
Whilst modern policing is sharing mysognistic 'banter' and pictures of victims on WhatsApp.
Ah: "progress", eh?
I don't know if the Daily Mail approve of physically defending a 70 year old being attacked but I definately do. If that makes me sink lower in your estimation than I already was I think I can live with that.
If you think standing by and watching a 70 year old get attacked is Ok then I'd better not give my opinion on you. Partly because I may be wrong and you're just taking the chance to have a little dig and not saying that it would be OK and if I'm right because it wouldn't be very polite.
This is so not the point (and chapeau for taking the thieves on) but surely if you have Brompton you fold it and take it with you rather than lock it up?
As a keen cycler myself I read this story with interest. What I would like to know though is why the cyclers thought it was ok to lock up an expensive Brompton with only a D-lock and then toddle off for a meal. That was a terrible decision by the cyclers and really just encouraged those poor professional thieves to target the bike. What's worse is that the cyclers don't even seem to be wearing helmets or hi-vis whereas the thieves at least are wearing full black helmets which will protect them from strong sunlight as well as collisions with lawless red-light-running pavement hogging cyclers. I really hope that those cyclers behave properly in future to prevent such crimes occurring. Thank goodness the thieves had an angle grinder handy for protection. Best, Nigel.
A loving homage to Nigel, or as I knew him, Fireman John.
"Cyclers"
You've got to feel for the other diners having to put up with people turning up to such an event as lunch. On bikes. The stench of sweat must have been terrible.
Not to mention having to look at the helmet hair and general explosion in the Decathlon aisle appearance of these people. One doesn't spend £500 a month on hair and nails to have to look at these troglodytes whilst enjoying luncheon.
The final insult to everyone else would've been clipless pedals and them god awful shoes you have to wear with them. Why, just why?!!
They're not Louboutins, that's for sure.
After many years as a cyclist I have solved the issue of helmet hair. I bought a skull shaver.
Head gets cold outside in winter though. (and the spring and autumn)
Shove it troll.,
I feel I ought to reassure some that cocovelo is on our side and is a martin, nigel, fireman etc. parody account!
Sure, but while we are temporarily free of the real thing (I think; or is there already another incarnation?) do we have to impersonate it?
I wonder if we could get the opinion of a leading bicycle security expert
I'm not sure what I'd do in that situation but bravo to those that have stood up to these types of thieves. I know they're only material items but it's the morality of someone thinking they can just come along and take something that's not theirs so brazenly that makes it warming hearing about people standing up to them.
The number plate of one is visible, so that ought to help enquiries, while the other has a food delivery box on the back. Were they both stolen too?
Both the bikes and plates are undoubtedly stolen, which is why they are so brazen; if they were unlucky enough to be pursued by police, the police couldn't identify them and as a last resort, they'd dump the bikes and leg it..
"I just think that's depressing and that they should be so aggressive about it. I mean, trying to intimidate me by, by pushing an angle, grinder into my face. That is not on."
How very British. If only they'd asked nicely..
But seriously, glad there was a happy ending.
These scumbags are nearly always dressed in the obligatory "roadman" uniform of black tracksuits, black trainers, black hoodies, black bandannas / balaclavas and their backsides hanging out.
They are visible a mile off to anyone who has had the misfortune to have an interaction with them.
The only group of people that doesn't seem to notice them is the police.
I suppose the thieves having angle grinders was the most likely meaning of the headline. But I was so disapointed that the cyclist wasn't armed with an angle grinder while he fought off the thieves.
Mick Dundee style - "that's not an angle grinder, this is an angle grinder". Pulling out a nine inch badboy.
I'm seeing a Rambo image - a big orange Stihl petrol grinder in one hand, starting cord in the other - quote as above......
A petrol one definitely works better than the one I had in mind.
Even better if the Brompton-owner had a Stihl chainsaw - bound to make a nasty mark or two on the assailants helmets - AND their headgear 😂
Or Ash Williams from the Evil Dead franchise. Groovy
yes, while they are going about the lock, you disable their moped.
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