Silent Crime: Stephanie Kovrlija about bike crime in West Yorkshire
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00:00So, my name is Stephanie Convalier and I currently work inside the motorcycle industry but used
00:06to work as part of West Yorkshire Police.
00:10What do you see these days with regard to low level crime in your industry?
00:17It seems to be growing and with it growing the frustration along with it is getting massive
00:22at the minute.
00:23There's a lot of frustrated people that are tired that not a lot is being done to stop
00:28it.
00:29What kind of crime are you seeing?
00:30So we're seeing a lot of bike theft and bike theft seems to be escalating at the minute
00:35so there is a lot of bike thieves that are going around that are challenging people for
00:41their bikes while they're on it and it's becoming more brazen.
00:45Is this just in Leeds or is it West Yorkshire as a whole?
00:50I would say West Yorkshire as a whole.
00:51I should imagine there is a lot going on across the country but as we see here West Yorkshire
00:57as a whole is quite bad.
01:01There has been times where I know that we've personally caught somebody here or we've heard
01:09that somebody's been arrested and then that same person has been let off and is back out
01:14on the streets the next day with very little repercussions.
01:18And obviously people are getting very frustrated about this.
01:22And it doesn't take long to look on Facebook and see that people are looking to become
01:29vigilante over it.
01:30People are wanting something to be done and it would be a shame for them people to put
01:35their own lives at risk and risk getting in trouble themselves to try and do something
01:40that should be done in the first place by the police.
01:44Do you feel that this police should be doing more or others should be doing and what could
01:49be done?
01:50I think it's a collective because I know that the officers on the ground work extremely
01:55hard to try and do what they need to do.
01:59They try and find them, they will catch them, they will arrest them, they will take them
02:02into custody but then it's after that that there's not a lot goes through.
02:08I know from a personal experience that I stopped somebody from stealing a bike, one of my members
02:13of staff's bike in the car park.
02:16The guy came at me with a hammer and he was, the bike team in Leeds caught this chap within
02:24a matter of an hour or so and they worked really hard to do that but then I received
02:28news that he'd had, all he got was a tag on for nine weeks I think it was and a couple
02:34of hours of community service and that was it.