A woman’s bicycle was stolen in front of her by two thieves whilst sitting outside a coffee shop in London, the latest in a recent spate of bikejacking incidents.
The incident occurred on Saturday 21st February outside Bartons coffee shop on Dockhead, Bermondsey and was captured on CCTV. The woman was sat outside beside her bike with one other person when two people pull up to the kerb on a motorbike. Dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, the man on the back of the motorbike makes an initial lunge to grab the bike, at which point the woman’s friend gets up to guard the bike.
However, the man then dismounts the motorbike and, after rummaging in his pocket he is able to take the bike (at “knifepoint” according to the uploaded video) and carry it on his back as the motorbike then drives away.
The Metropolitan Police have previously been criticised for their passive response to the bikejacking incidents. After a group of club cyclists training in Regent’s Park asked for neighbourhood policing to patrol the area in the early morning, they were told the Met are “unable to change our working hours”. Their plea came after cyclists reported feeling like “sitting ducks”.
The chairman of Regent’s Park Cyclists, Sean Epstein, said that bikejacking “keeps happening and there’s no plan to do anything about it.” A Freedom of Information request made in 2023 found that an average of two bikejackings a day are occurring in London alone, with most incidents occurring in the early morning, when working people are most likely to be out riding higher-value road bikes.
The above incident, according to the description attached to the YouTube video, was reported to the police immediately, with the Met responding two hours later. road.cc have contacted the Met Police for comment both on the recent bikejacking in Bermondsey, and the wider bikejacking trends across the city.
However, it is not just in the capital where bikejackings have become a concern. South Gloucestershire Council recently confirmed an application to the local Combined Authority for a £1 million investment in CCTV cameras along the Bristol & Bath Railway Path after the trail was likened to the “wild west” for bikejackings. Such was the “epidemic” of violent incidents that local cyclists reported feeling safer riding on roads among buses and cars than on the traffic-free cycle path.
Meanwhile in Hertfordshire, footage was recently captured of bikejackers ramming a cyclist to the ground and threatening them with an axe. In 2024 British Cycling joined a letter signed by campaigners, bike brands and insurers calling for the Met Police to take stronger action against the “systematic targeting” of cyclists.
20 thoughts on ““Knifepoint” bikejacking in broad daylight captured on CCTV outside busy coffee shop”
what looks like the same gang bikejacked a womans Brompton, the day before, in almost the same location too. Broad daylight, on a main road:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/641173915998956/permalink/26069369459419385/
Sounded incredibly distressing for her. There is a thread on reddit of other sitings of them in the same area (Bermondsey) daily.
Not sure, with this knowledge why it is so difficult for the police not to have a motorbike riding around those streets for a few hours in the morning or evening.
back in around 2013/14 I was attacked and robbed of my bike in Bermondsey, very close to where this incident happened. They were in a large group of around 15-20, one of whom came up behind me and whacked me with a hammer. fortunately he missed my head and hit my neck/ shoulder. anyway some kind person called the police & 2 plainclothes officers arrived after a few minutes. I got into their car and they drove to a nearby housing estate. the officers went into a building and returned a couple of minutes later with the bike, which I still have and often ride. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s the same group doing it all these years later.
I don’t know if the new comment system weeds out words like “bastard”. Let’s find out.
Bastards!
It’s time to take up a new sport, I think.
Baseball.
I shall take up baseball. I might play baseball at a moment’s notice. I need my bat with me at all times.
It won’t stop me doing other activities, such as cycling places or sitting outside a cafe. But I’ll need my bat with me, in case I am spontaneously invited to play immediately. And a cloth, to wipe my sweat; and any blood in the case of an accident.
Bastards
Interestingly, I had a comment delayed for several days awaiting ‘moderation’ because it included : Lancashire Constabulary b******s. Let’s see if it happens again, and if it does, it implies that they’re concerned about anti-police sentiment which would be a depressing sentiment when so much of our discontent is related to police anti-cyclist behaviour.
Nope !
My other comment about another woman also having her Brompton stolen, literrally just around the corner, by what looks like the same gang, on Monday is “awating moderation” (probably becuase i linked to the facebook comment).
but here is a fundraiser setup by the cafe owner:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/replace-bike-stolen-at-knifepoint-outside-bartons
Foreign readers may wonder why Brits pay taxes for since roads are becoming increasingly dangerous, on and off the bike.
Are they, though? Are they more dangerous per person (given the population is increasing), or per person-hour on the roads (or per billion passenger-furlongs)?
And – since when?
Pretty sure that the 70s were a boom time for eg. dying on the roads, and we’ve got a lot better since. Haven’t checked the trends over the last few years but I think that it’s all pretty small changes comparatively.
Different types of risks / relative size of risks of course.
Measuring passengers in furlongs seems a bit unorthodox – what’s wrong with feet and inches?
You say feet, but horsists insist: hands.
We take our lives in our hands every time we take to the streets.
I know this is true, because Nigel Farage said so. I believe he last stated this to a Daily Express journalist, just after cancelling all of his post Gorton and Denton by-election press conferences.
He gave an example of feeling threated by foreign-looking people when walking from the carpark to his monthly orthodontist appointment to have his teeth tea-stained.
Some might wonder why some Britons, mainly those on the right, are so eager to run their country down when most forms of crime have declined, e.g. homicide last year lowest in half a century, firearms offences down to their lowest since 2003, knife crime 9% lower last year, fatal stabbings down 23% on the previous year…violent crime of all sorts, burglary and car theft are all down 90% on thirty years ago, but that doesn’t suit the “everything’s shit because of immigrants” narrative, does it?
Ok, but there was zero car theft in the good old days, before 1880.
Ah yes, but in compensation cart theft is now almost unheard of.
Theft of carts (trailers) and other farming equipment is very common in rural Cambs.
It has probably overtaken hate coursing, but is still behind fly tipping in the rural crime league table.
I dunno – there’s an awful lot of that on social media.
@andystow as MAGA-pecked Brits we resent that! Why, we were stealing train cars long before!
My view is that more and more crimes just don’t get reported – either because it’s known nothing will be done – or people are afraid of reporting crime – so the reports don’t reflect the true numbers. Plus there’s huge pressure from Police and Crime Commissioners to reduce crime figures – so many reports to the Police never make it to the official figures.
Those figures I quoted were from the Crime Survey for England and Wales which has been running since 1982 (originally the British Crime Survey) which assesses the true level of crime, not just reported crime.
I was pushed off my bike into a parked car and crashed heavily about a month ago.
When I get up there’s a guy in my face with a huge knife and shouting ‘Don’t get stabbed for your bike’
Totally helpless as I watch him jump on the back of his friends moped and ride off with it.
This was on St. James Road, Bermondsey – a stone’s throw from this incident, and also the Brompton e-bike incident doing the rounds.
‘At least it’s insured’
‘at least you’re OK’
Yes, but I’m now in fear of my life if I ever choose to ride into work through that area on a remotely nice looking bike
I’m now contemplating more than ever if London is the right place to live, despite having grown up and lived here my whole life.
Not a peep from the Police despite the assault, battery, theft, outside of ‘we’ve been to the road to look at CCTV’
All this whilst I’m seeing more comments almost daily about another incident happening on this stretch. It’s BS