Police have said they hope the imprisonment of a prolific bike thief who "devastated" Bristol will act as a warning to others. Lewis Collins, 27, was sentenced to 20 months behind bars at Bristol Crown Court yesterday (June 12) after admitting 39 offences in the city.
Collins carried out the crimes between November 2021 and March 2023. He often cut locks and stole bikes from storage locations in the city centre.
He pleaded guilty to 20 counts of theft and handling stolen goods and asked for another 19 offences of handling stolen goods to be taken into consideration. His crimes have had a "devastating" impact on victims whose lives have been affected.
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PC Louise Jones, officer in the case, said: “We know how devastating the impact of bike thefts can be. Depending on the victim’s circumstances such thefts can prevent people from being able to get to work and always cause a huge amount of distress. One of the victims in this case found Lewis Collins attempting to sell their stolen bike online and reported it to us.
“Officers traced Collins and after we attended to recover the bike, analysis of his mobile phone found lots of photographs of suspected bikes on the device. We cross-referenced the bikes photographed with outstanding theft reports on our system and established Collins had been involved in dozens of bike thefts over a significant period of time.
“We hope the prison sentence he has received this week is a warning to thieves that we will always try to bring them to justice and we continue to encourage any victims who have a bike stolen to report it to the police.”
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