Belsoc committee member Peter Wallace writes:
On show in Camden in December – the Met Police answer to the growing Electric Bike menace in London. It’s a specially-modified superfast Surron Ultra Bee electric bike as the police take on the thieves at their own game.
In an exclusive interview with Belsoc, Sergeant Ryan Perry explained the Met’s decision to go electric – the first police force to do so – came after phone-snatching by e-bike riders had hit record levels.
The bikes are fast, light-weight and highly manoeuvrable making them ideal for crowded streets.
” Normal police motorbikes are just not suitable for chasing e-bikes. Turning takes ages and by the time they do, the e-bike thieves are away.”
“In days gone by, we regularly saw criminals using mopeds to snatch phones. As technology has evolved, there has been a migration across to e-bikes (often illegally adapted to increase performance) and e-motorcycles commonly referred to as Surrons”, he said.
Fully adapted with increased power, flashing lights and sirens, the new Police bikes cost around £8000 each but Sgt Perry claims the success of the bikes so far, shows their value for money.
“Our bikes provide two benefits. The first is they give us the ability to stay in contact with the fleeing suspects in a pursuit situation for longer. We can now go where they go. This allows us more time to coordinate other units to get them stopped.
“An example of this was when my team pursued and arrested two males riding illegal e-bikes. We had responded to numerous calls of phone snatches around Victoria. Our bikes pursued them into Lambeth where our cars were able to get in position to support us. One suspect came off his bike on his own accord and was arrested, the other suspect was ‘assisted’ off his bike by the front bumper of one our cars. Between them they had 11 stolen phones that we were able to reunite with their owners. Both males were charged.
“The second benefit and probably the most important, is the deterrent factor. The criminals hate us having them because they are fully aware of how capable they are. We have seen during days we deploy on them a significant reduction in offences”.
Sgt Perry’s new task is to persuade the Met to speed up going electric.
