Serial bike thief jailed

A serial bike thief has been jailed for a year after being twice caught on CCTV cutting locks off bicycles.

Rolandas Gaidys stole bikes from Sea Lanes and a block of flats in New England Street last summer.

And when he was later arrested and taken to the police cells at Hollingbury, officers found bolt cutters on him.

On Wednesday, he was given 26 weeks for the two counts of theft and going equipped – and an earlier six-month suspended sentence for a string of offences which also included stealing a bike was activated, giving him a total sentence of a year.

The owner of the electric bike stolen at Sea Lanes on 26 July said the theft had left her fearful and suspicious of strangers.

In a victim impact statment read out in court, Lesley Shaw said: “I stood there feeling physically sick and I started to shake. I walked back and forth in a real state.

“I went back to the Sea Lanes office and the staff were very nice. They wanted me to see the CCTV and I saw my bike being stolen and that made me feel sick.

“When I was in the swimming pool going up and down, I saw a crowd of people outside and I thought I hope they don’t steal my bike – and it was that person I had seen.”

She said her insurance covered most of the cost of replacing the £1,400 bike, but not the £650 it cost to buy the accessories and the excess.

She added: “It took a lot of courage to go out on the replacement bike and when I did I couldn’t risk leaving it anywhere unattended.

“When you have something like that taken from you it’s not just the loss of a material possession. It feels like someone has violated your personal space by taking it.

“I’d had the bike for four years and bought it when I was made redundant and it was my saving grace as my husband, who doesn’t walk well, cycled with me.

“This incident has made me feel unsafe and fearful which I don’t like. I keep having panic attacks even when I’m out shopping I’m constantly looking over my shoulder thinking is that the person who took my bike and always looking at everyone else’s bikes now to see if it’s the one I had stolen.”

Defending, John Naylor said Gaidys, a Lithuanian national, had become homeless after losing his settled status in the UK after Brexit.

His family had lived on the border with Russia, and all of them had either been killed or had fled the country, meaning he could not go back there.

Since being remanded in custody for these offences in August, he had been working on beating his addiction.

The other bike Gaidys stolen, worth £300, was taken from York and Elder Place on 7 June. The bolt cutters were found when he was arrested and searched on 22 August.

He also stole goods from the Co-Op on Old London Road, Patcham, on 14 January and 12 May.