Man charged with theft of 27 bikes in West Midlands
Police say Clive Halford was stealing a bike roughly every two days.
West Midlands police have charged a man with stealing more than two dozen motorcycles in less than two months.
Clive Halford, 30, was arrested late last month at his home in Pendeford, on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. He was charged with conspiracy and appeared before Wolverhampton Magistrates Court on 30 July.
He’s been remanded into custody and will next appear at Wolverhampton Crown Court on 27 August.
Police say he stole some 27 vehicles - mostly motorcycles - between 14 May and 8 July, taking bikes from Wolverhampton, Dudley, and the wider South Staffordshire area.
If you’re the owner of that 27th bike stolen, you might wish that police had acted sooner, but the fact that an arrest was made at all seems to support recent reports that bike theft is on the decline across the UK.
In June, motorcycle insurance broker Bennetts reported that motorcycle and scooter thefts across the country had dropped more than 2 per cent from the month before. Some 2,064 two-wheelers were stolen in the first month of summer; numbers for July have not yet been released.
These numbers would seem to suggest that police are finally responding to years of motorcyclists’ criticism, who felt that authorities were too often unwilling to take action against thieves or to help in the recovery of stolen vehicles.
Operation Needle - enacted by Merseyside Police - is one example of the kind of work that police are now doing. The operation took place during the Isle of Man TT, when the area was flooded with motorcyclists taking ferries to and from the Isle of Man.
“We’ve worked closely throughout the planning and delivery stages of the operation with our partners, including Liverpool City Council, Liverpool BID Company, hotels and carpark providers, Liverpool Ports Police, and the Isle of Man Constabulary to reassure visitors and disrupt offenders,” explained Sgt. Craig Winstanley of Merseyside Police. “We are determined by working closely with our partners, to make it as safe as possible for those that live, work, socialise and visit here.”
Of course, police can’t be expected to do all the work. Bikers can do a lot to help themselves by taking reasonable steps to protect their property via chains and other security measures.
We’ll keep you updated on the case against Halford. For more motorcycle news written by humans, stick with Visordown.com.
Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
