Serial bike thief jailed – after stealing police officer’s bike

A serial bike thief who used the proceeds of the sale of the bikes he stole to fund his drug habit has been jailed for 12 months after stealing a bicycle that turned out to belong to a police officer attending a conference in Leeds.        

The Yorkshire Evening Post reports that Christopher Hall, aged 39, cut through the lock of the £400 bike, which had been parked near the Trinity Leeds shopping centre.

The bike belonged to an officer from West Yorkshire Police who was attending a training seminar nearby, and Hall, from

Christopher Hall, from New Wortley and who has a long history of stealing bicycles, used bolt croppers to cut through the lock of the £400 bike while it was parked up near Trinity Leeds on March 4.

He was arrested after being seen on Fish Street throwing away items stowed in bags on the bike, with a search of his own bag leading to the discovery of the bolt-croppers he had used to cut the lock of the stolen bike, and he was also found to be in possession of what was described as a small quantity of cannabis.

Appearing at Leeds Crown Court via videolink from HMP Leeds, Hall pleaded guilty to the theft of the bike, going equipped for theft, and possession of a class B drug, as well as breaching the terms of an earlier six-month suspended prison sentence.

The court heard that Hall had previously been convicted on 37 occasions for 64 offences, of which 35 related to theft, many of which were of bikes.

Speaking in mitigation on behalf of Hall, defence counsel Laurence Dilworth said: “He has a long-standing issue with substance misuse but he accepts it's no justification for these offences.”

He added that Hall had, “in his own words, lost his head” after his partner had a miscarriage and that the defendant, whom he said has a personality disorder and suffers from psychosis, anxiety and depression, had stopped using the anti-psychotic medication he had been described, and as a result “returned to his old coping strategies of spice and crack cocaine.”

Sentencing Hall, Judge Kate Rayfield told him: “Being addicted to drugs has ruined your life, but the offences you commit ruin other people's lives. There must come a time when there's a custodial sentence.”

Hall’s latest conviction triggered a six-month suspended prison sentence handed down to him last October for a non-domestic burglary, to which the judge added a further six months in relation to the offences for which he was standing trial, for a total of 12 months’ imprisonment.