Police will no longer investigate bike thefts if their owner leaves them unattended for more than two hours.
Officers no longer have time to scour CCTV for longer than that window as it takes away from their patrols, British Transport Police (BTP) said.
The force also will not investigate thefts on trains if the passenger doesn’t know the exact carriage they were on.
Bikes worth less than £200 should not be reported neither should cars if they have also been left for longer than two hours.
Simon Feldman’s bike was stolen outside at a cycle park covered by CCTV at Watford Junction station.
But officers said they could not investigate because he had been working in London and had left it unattended for 10 hours.
‘The BTP report came back after I reported it and it said they wouldn’t investigate it. Even though it’s right under a camera. And I found out that if you have left your bike for more than two hours, they won’t investigate it,” he told the BBC.
‘I was pretty shocked because what it’s doing effectively is decriminalising bike theft and I realised how many people are being affected by this.’
A spokesperson for the BTP said: ‘Whilst we know that bike thefts are upsetting, inconvenient and potentially costly, there can often be limited opportunity for investigation.
‘Our experience tells us at an early stage that there are some crimes that are unlikely to ever be solved – such as those without a clear estimate of time or location for the incident or if there is a lack of CCTV or witnesses.
‘The more time our officers spend reviewing CCTV footage for these offences, the less time they have available for patrolling railway stations and trains, investigating crimes which cause the most harm and providing a visible presence across the network.
‘We will continue to apply a test of proportionality when determining investigation – looking at factors such as timeframes, witnesses, the availability of CCTV, the impact on the victim or whether there is a realistic prospect of a successful outcome.
‘Any offence which is not investigated will still provide us with valuable intelligence, used to direct our patrols and operations.’
