It is a regular sight on social media but never fails to shock: men in balaclavas cutting through bike locks with angle grinders — in full view of onlookers — and brazenly riding away.
On Wednesday, the scene was Crawthew Grove in East Dulwich, southeast London, where a video of a theft of a bicycle went viral on Twitter (“no arrests have been made”, according to the Metropolitan Police).
One sunny day last July, it was the turn of Albert Mas, a 31-year-old from Southampton. “I have a tracker on my bike, and one day noticed it was three miles away in a house in a rough part of the city.” After minimal response from the police, the compliance worker went to try to get
