Pupil's £1k bike stolen after teachers ban him from lock-up

Published on Monday 6 April 2009 10:44

A TEENAGER had his £1000 bike stolen at his school just days after being banned from using the teachers' bike shed to store it.

Marc Cable was forced to lock up his mountain bike on the pupils' rack at the rear of the brand new Broughton High School building where the thief struck on Thursday.

The 16-year-old had been storing his prized possession in the teachers' bike shed, which is locked and can only be opened by entering a code into a keypad.

But he was told off by teachers and forced to park it instead beside his classmates' bikes. When he went to pick it up on Thursday afternoon, it was gone.

The school, which was built under the council's PPP2 project, features a single front entrance for staff and pupils, which teachers said was to "promote equality".

Marc, who had been planning to join a friend on a summer cycling holiday in France, said the different security arrangements for teachers and pupils showed "no equality at all".

He had spent months saving 20 a week from his paper round to buy the Norco Rival 2007 bike for 450 last January, and had added new brakes, suspension, pedals and chainset since then.

The pupil said: "I came back after lunch and parked it at the pupils' bike shed at 1.35pm on Thursday. When I came back at 3.30pm it was gone.

"There is one CCTV camera covering it and you can see the thief steal the bike at 3pm. But the quality of the footage is so poor that the thief couldn't be identified.

"When the school first opened, I started using the teachers' shed because it has a lock on it, unlike the pupils' one, and it wasn't so exposed. The bike is very valuable and I was worried it might be stolen.

"But the teachers told me off for using it, saying it was for staff only. Now I've lost my bike and it doesn't seem right."

Marc, who lives with father Colin, 47, a pharmacist, and mother Gwen, 45, a part-time worker at Marks and Spencer, has appealed to anyone who can help him recover his bike to come forward.

He said: "It took me ages to save up and I was really happy with it. It wasn't insured so my mum is trying to claim on her home contents insurance, but I'm not sure if I will get the money back."

His mother added: "I don't think it's fair that the teachers wouldn't allow Marc to use the staff lock-up."

A city council spokesman said: "We take incidents of theft very seriously and will be reviewing our security procedures as a result of this incident."

A police spokesman said: "We would appeal to anyone with information on the theft to contact police."