Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Prolific thief jailed for seven months for stealing bike from railway station

John Bruce Miller, who has several previous convictions for bike theft, was captured on CCTV nicking a bike from Cambridge Station Cycle Park

Just weeks after the Liberal Democrats warned that bike theft has been effectively “decriminalised”, thanks to Home Office data revealing that nine in 10 cases reported to the police since 2019 have gone unsolved, one prolific bike thief has been sentenced to seven months in prison following his latest attempt.

John Bruce Miller, a 39-year-old with several previous convictions for bike theft, was caught on CCTV taking a bike from Cambridge Station Cycle Park in November.

Last week at Peterborough Crown Court, Miller was jailed for seven months after pleasing guilty to theft of a pedal cycle and two counts of breaching his current Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO), which prohibited him from being in possession of any bike or bike part without a verifiable receipt, and from being in possession of any item that can be used to steal a bike in a public place.

> “It makes you feel powerless”: Victims in UK's bike theft capital share their frustrations

“Miller is a prolific bike thief in Cambridge with numerous convictions against his name for cycle theft,” Sergeant Dan Scott, of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, said following the 39-year-old’s sentencing.

“We continue to work hard to address cycle crime in Cambridge. This includes reviewing and identifying hotspots, catching offenders, recovering stolen bikes with proactive patrols, and education.

“All reports of bike theft are taken seriously and we would encourage people to report offences so we can build up a picture and deploy resources accordingly.”

> Prolific bike thief jailed for six months after being spotted by off-duty police officers

Miller’s sentencing falls largely in line with previous prison terms for serial bike thieves in the UK. In July 2022, another prolific Cambridge bike thief, Joshua Collinson-Prime, was jailed for six months for stealing two speakers and a locked bike worth £1,200, after being caught days later by off-duty police officers while breaking the lock of a mountain bike.

That January, Paul Digney was sentenced to 21 months in prison following a burglary spree which saw him steal £4,500 worth of bicycles after he gained access to the communal areas of three buildings in Leeds.

> Warning that bike theft has been "decriminalised" as stats show 89% of reported cases unsolved

However, those lengthy prison sentences appear to be the exception rather than the rule, with recent data released by the Home Office revealing that of all the bike thefts reported to the police since 2019, 89 per cent (more than 365,000) have gone unsolved, pointing to more than eight reported bike thefts an hour and 200 per day going unsolved in England and Wales over the past four years.

Alistair Carmichael, the home affairs spokesperson of the Liberal Democrats, the party that analysed the data, called the figures “shocking” and cause for cyclists to be left “wondering if bike theft has been decriminalised”.

After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

Add new comment

10 comments

Avatar
chrisonabike | 10 months ago
0 likes
Quote:

Miller was jailed for seven months after pleasing guilty ...

More pleasing than the alternative, even if they got a shorter sentence. (Apologies, just confirming journalism is a pitiless world).

Avatar
Rome73 | 10 months ago
1 like

I imagine the Police treat bike theft as an insurance issue rather than a criminal issue. Can't blame them to be honest. The best thing is to use at least two locks, plus a wheel lock (Dutch style 'cafe lock') and  attach a motion alarm to the seat tube. (Abus do one designed for cycles and eScooters) Not practical on a road-bike but certainly on the commuter bike. 

Avatar
brooksby replied to Rome73 | 10 months ago
3 likes

BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:

I imagine the Police treat bike theft as an insurance issue rather than a criminal issue. Can't blame them to be honest. The best thing is to use at least two locks, plus a wheel lock (Dutch style 'cafe lock') and  attach a motion alarm to the seat tube. (Abus do one designed for cycles and eScooters) Not practical on a road-bike but certainly on the commuter bike. 

Unles there is actual personal injury, I suspect that they are beginning to treat all crime as an "insurance issue".

 

(OT - on locks, a friend of my wife's had a high end MTB stolen at the weekend.  Not sure how well they'd locked it up, were on a cafe stop, but according to the builder's website (company called Deviate?) their bikes start at about £2666 so I really hope they had used a big lock… .

Avatar
Secret_squirrel | 10 months ago
4 likes

The sad thing is that Im willing to bet that vast majority of bike thefts are committed by a small minority of criminals.  A tiny bit of focussed effort would probably make the numbers plummet.

Avatar
SimoninSpalding replied to Secret_squirrel | 10 months ago
4 likes

I would also add that that small number of criminals are unlikely to be doing it thinking they are going to get rich, it will be as with most aquisitive crime to get the money for the next fix/ drink/ bet.

Unfortunately during this individual's time in prison it is unlikely that anything will be done to address the underlying causes of his criminal behaviour, and he will come out and start again.

Avatar
jaymack replied to SimoninSpalding | 10 months ago
4 likes

Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse. 

Avatar
Dnnnnnn replied to jaymack | 10 months ago
0 likes

jaymack wrote:

Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.

Or - depending on how you think of addiction - helping sick people get better.

Avatar
Rendel Harris replied to Dnnnnnn | 10 months ago
3 likes

Dnnnnnn wrote:

Or - depending on you think of addiction - helping sick people get better.

The ease of availability of drugs in prisons at the moment, and the paucity of effective treatment programmes therein, make it a pretty ineffective addiction treatment; in fact 15% of drug addicts in the UK who have been to prison at least once state that their addiction actually began behind bars.

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to Rendel Harris | 10 months ago
2 likes

Also those with mental health issues (not helped by the poor prison conditions and the drugs).  Hmm... we seem to have found another vicious circle.

Avatar
ktache replied to Rendel Harris | 10 months ago
4 likes

And I understand that the drugs, whilst easier to get, are very expensive so the user becomes massively indebted to the dealer so must commit to crime once they obtain freedom to pay off often very violent gangs.

Latest Comments