...  With a bike theft though it's much quicker to home in.  Assuming it's a digital recording rather than (surely not!) a physical tape you skip to the midpoint of the time between it being left and found stolen ...

Thousands of bikes are stolen every year from outside stations

The British Transport Police (BTP) says it will not investigate bike thefts outside stations where the bicycle has been left for more than two hours.

It means most bike thefts will not be investigated and CCTV footage will not be looked at outside a two-hour timeframe.

Commuters leave thousands of cycles on racks outside stations every day, including in specially built bike parks with CCTV. Critics say the BTP policy means those facilities are not secure and theft has effectively been decriminalised.

The BTP said: "The more time our officers spend reviewing CCTV... the less time they have available for patrolling railway stations and trains, investigating crimes which cause the most harm."

Simon Feldman has had one bike taken already from outside Watford Junction station and an attempt was made recently to steal another. He informed the BTP, which told him officers would not investigate the theft - which happened while he was on shift in London - as he had left the bike at the station for 10 hours.

"The BTP report came back after I reported it and it said they wouldn't investigate it. Even though it's right under a camera. And I found out that if you have left your bike for more than two hours, they won't investigate it," he said. "I was pretty shocked because what it's doing effectively is decriminalising bike theft and I realised how many people are being affected by this."

Mr Feldman said most secure parking was next to useless. "Lots of people across the country cycle to a station every day and their possessions aren't being looked after. They're not safe. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being thrown into secure bike parking and it isn't secure," he said. "These cameras, you could put a bag over them and that would be exactly the same purpose they serve. The footage is never watched, the footage isn't monitored so the cameras don't do anything, so the thieves are so confident now they just take the bikes in broad daylight.

"The answer is a tough one. British Transport Police should look into these crimes but there are so few of them these days, maybe it's time British Transport Police said 'we can't do these any more' and hand it over to the local police."

In a list of crimes the BTP will not investigate, it also said thefts on trains should only be reported if the passenger knows the exact carriage.

Any bikes stolen worth less than £200 will not be investigated, neither will car thefts if the vehicle has been left for more than two hours.


A breakdown from BTP of which crimes would not be investigated

Tom Fyans, from the London Cycling Campaign, said more enforcement was critical. "A lack of secure cycle parking at stations and next to no action against thieves leaves London way behind the Netherlands where nearly half of trips to stations are by bike," he said. "Many victims of theft in the capital just stop cycling - if we want to reduce car trips in London and encourage cycling we have to redouble enforcement against cycle theft."

A spokesperson for the British Transport Police said: "Whilst we know that bike thefts are upsetting, inconvenient and potentially costly, there can often be limited opportunity for investigation. Our experience tells us at an early stage that there are some crimes that are unlikely to ever be solved – such as those without a clear estimate of time or location for the incident or if there is a lack of CCTV or witnesses.

"The more time our officers spend reviewing CCTV footage for these offences, the less time they have available for patrolling railway stations and trains, investigating crimes which cause the most harm and providing a visible presence across the network.

"We will continue to apply a test of proportionality when determining investigation – looking at factors such as timeframes, witnesses, the availability of CCTV, the impact on the victim or whether there is a realistic prospect of a successful outcome. Any offence which is not investigated will still provide us with valuable intelligence, used to direct our patrols and operations."