POLICE are urging bike owners to ensure their cycles are registered on a national database to help ensure they can be reunited with them if they are lost or stolen.
The Bike Register database contains the details of tens of thousands bicycles from across the UK and for the last year Police Scotland officers have had access to the database via a downloadable app on their mobile devices.
Recently, four successful bike recoveries have been made as a result of the app and bike marking.
In the first instance, a member of the public in Edinburgh found a bicycle and used the app they had on their phone to establish it had been registered as lost. The owner was found to have moved from the Capital to Woking and was reunited with the bike.
Local officers in Lancashire also came across a stolen bike being sold on Facebook Marketplace in the course of their inquiries and by utilising the app on their mobile devices, they confirmed it was registered to an address in the Currie area of Edinburgh. The bike was again, returned to its rightful owner.
In the last two weeks, police in the Wester Hailes area of Edinburgh have returned two bikes to their owners after both were found and handed into the police station. Utilising the app, the cycles were both confirmed as stolen and then handed back to those they belong to.
Any officer who locates a bike they believe may be lost or stolen can access the database via the app, and scan a visible bar code or enter property details to check to see if it has been registered. If so, they can then find out whether the status is set to lost or stolen, and who the registered owner is.
It is anticipated that hundreds of new bikes will have been purchased or received over Christmas, many worth large sums of money. Owners of bikes, both new and old, are urged to ensure their cycle’s details are logged on the database.
Inspector Jordan Low from Police Scotland’s Rural and Acquisitive Crime Team, said: “We know that for many in Scotland, bikes are not just an important recreational item, they are a vital mode of transportation or exercise and to have them lost or stolen can be devastating.
“I would ask that all bike owners ensure their bicycles’ details are logged on the Bike Register database, as this will aid us during our inquiries whenever we locate any bikes that we believe to be stolen, or that are brought into police stations as lost property.
“The recent successful recoveries highlight just how important the database is in order to reunite bikes with their rightful owners and the app available to officers on their mobile device is another useful tool in helping us tackle bike theft across the country.”
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