SBD Member Company BikeRegister reaches 750,000 registration landmark
Secured by Design (SBD) Member Company BikeRegister announced it has reached 750,000 registrations on its national cycle database, the UK’s leading online bicycle identification and registration initiative.
BikeRegister announced this significant landmark at the fourth annual Cycle Crime Conference, which BikeRegister hosted in association with the British Transport Police, in late June.
Officers from 37 Police Forces joined key partners from the cycling, retail and security industries to shared best practice on cycle crime solutions at the conference, the theme of which was ‘Cycle Crime – More than just the theft of pedal cycles’.
Speakers highlighted the innovative partnership working to tackle bike crime going on across the UK, as well as the numerous cycle crime reduction and bike marking initiatives being undertaken nationally.
There were presentations from a number of guest speakers including renowned criminologist Martin Gill, Sergeant Mark Cleland, the new national bike crime lead at British Transport Police and Emily Van Der Lely from Crimestoppers.
A joint video on ‘How To Mark Your Bike’ featuring national mountain bike champion Cara Murray was shown to promote the use of BikeRegister.
PC Daniel Holdsworth from Merseyside Police highlighted the good work being done by his team, sending unclaimed bikes from police stores to hurricane victims in the Caribbean.
Police Constables Pete Ormond and Sean Murphy from West Midlands Police spoke about their force’s successful Operation Magpie, started in 2012, which is regularly reuniting stolen bikes with their owners and registering any unmarked bikes with BikeRegister. The operation has been working with organisations such as Safer Travel, local universities and schools, second hand bike shops and even the food delivery service Deliveroo.
Sergeant Matt Coe of the Met Police spoke of the cycle crime reduction initiatives which are trapping bike thieves in London; while PCSOs Karen Roberts and Lynn Peck of Met’s Tower Hamlets borough police announced that they had recovered more than 200 stolen bikes which they had checked against BikeRegister to verify ownership and successfully reunited many of the bikes with their owners.
Nick Roach, Police Liaison Officer for SelectaDNA, talked about the new SelectaDNA Tagging and Defence Sprays being used by the Met and other forces to tackle the serious problem of moped-enabled crime and the use of bicycles in committing thefts. The DNA spray technology, along with the use of other tactics, has helped the Met reduce moped-enabled crime in London by 38.5% (Feb to May 2018).
James Brown, BikeRegister Managing Director, rounded the day off with an update on the latest news from BikeRegister, which included the fact that the database recently hit the 750,000 bike registration landmark. He also spoke about new technology being offered by BikeRegister, including details of the Police App that makes the registration of bikes easier and enables recovered and stolen bikes to be checked quicker.
James concluded: “This year’s conference explored the theme of partnership working to tackle bike crime and highlighted the excellent work being done by so many of our delegates.
“BikeRegister will continue to engage with our valued partners from law enforcement, insurers and retailers and will shortly be announcing an exciting new partnership. We are thrilled with the success of our fourth Cycle Crime Conference and are grateful to the many police forces and industry partners who attended.”
James also presented the 2018 Cycle Crime Awards, which paid tribute to the hard work carried out by police forces and partners using BikeRegister to fight bike crime.
2018 Cycle Crime Awards winners:
• West Midlands Police for Operation Magpie, a sustained cycle crime initiative using BikeRegister
• British Transport Police for their commitment to cycle crime through the Lock It, Mark It communications campaign
• MPS Tower Hamlets for the most recoveries of stolen bikes using BikeRegister.
• Police Scotland for reducing bike crime through partnership working with the local council, Sustrans & second-hand bike shops in Edinburgh.
BikeRegister: BikeRegister is the UK’s national cycle database and the leading online bicycle identification and registration initiative aiming to reduce cycle theft, identify stolen bikes and assist in owner recovery.
BikeRegister is used by every UK Police Force and is the preferred bike marking system of the Metropolitan Police Service and British Transport Police.
Secured by Design: Secured by Design, the national police crime prevention initiative, aim to achieve sustainable reductions in crime through design and other approaches to enable people to live in a safer society.
We have more than 200 SBD trained police officers and staff in Police Forces around the UK. These Designing Out Crime Officers work with architects, developers and local authority planners to build in tried, tested and proven crime prevention techniques at the planning stage to reduce crime and keep communities safe.
SBD seeks to reduce crime by combining minimum standards of physical security like doors, windows and locks that achieve SBD’s Police Preferred Specification standard and proven design principles of the built environment such as natural surveillance and defensible space.
Whilst police are unable to recommend specific products, SBD can act as an effective gatekeeper and signposting service to our 650 member companies and their products, which meet our rigorous Police Preferred Specification standards.
Members’ products range from secure and robust doors, windows and locks through to cutting-edge IT products, CCTV components, and shutters and barriers. SBD is the only way for companies to obtain police accreditation for security products in the UK.
Video: https://youtu.be/jZ7oeAQcHmc