‘If you have a bike use two high-quality D-locks when parking, even in the busiest places’

• MID afternoon I wandered to the office door mid-conversation on my mobile phone.

I wondered why a youth was using wire cutters on a bike at the end of the road. Maybe they had locked it in error.

Surely no one could be robbing a bike mid-afternoon in South End Green, at the end of Heath Hurst Road opposite Hampstead Heath Overland.

The place was awash with pedestrians. None of them paid any attention.

Then it dawned on me that the gang of four lads were in the middle of a very public theft.

I left the door to the office but was too late to get a photo, or close enough to stop them. They jumped on four bikes (two robbed) and fled.

These four white lads (early 20s) made off at high speed towards Gospel Oak.

About 30 minutes later two very upset young people knocked on my office door, saying their bikes had been stolen. The cable lock had been clipped off, in broad daylight, in plain sight of dozens of heath-goers.

If you are in Camden beware of four white lads, about 20 years old, crowding around bike racks. I wish I could give more details.

And if you have a bike like me, use two high-quality D-locks when parking, even in the busiest places.

These thieves live among us.

DAVID DOUGLAS MBE
Hampstead & Highgate Conservatives