A bike thief was caught after footage of his brazen burglary went viral after being shared by the M.E.N.
Simon Longshaw was captured grinning on camera as he used garden shears to break into a shed and steal two bikes in Didsbury .
CCTV showed Longshaw, of Hyde Road in Gorton , breaking the outhouse’s lock before making off with a pair of bikes worth around £2,000 from the house on Mayville Drive.
The clip was viewed more than half a million times after it was shared amongst the Greater Manchester community on the M.E.N’s Facebook page .
And after being posted the bike’s owner, Chris Cherry, was sent ‘20 to 30’ messages pointing him in the direction of the suspected bike thief.
Turning detective, Chris, who used his bikes to run his own business touring historic battlefields around Europe, then found the full name and address of the man he believed to have taken them.
And after sharing the information with the police, Longshaw, 39, was then arrested by officers. He then pleaded guilty to the burglary after appearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, June 14.
Longshaw was then remanded in custody after breaching a suspended sentence handed to him in January 2015 after being convicted of causing actual bodily harm. He is now due to be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday, July 12.
Didsbury and Chorlton
Chris said: “It was brilliant to see the video being shared so much by people after being posted on the M.E.N. I couldn’t believe how many times it was viewed.
“Immediately after I started to receive messages on Facebook from people who gave me some information about the bike thief. Not all of it was right but after doing some digging I managed to get a full name and then an address he had been registered at which was only three streets away from me."
Chris says he has been told by police that it is unlikely he will ever see his bikes again.
He added: It is a shame as I use them to run my business and now I don’t know what to do. But I am just glad he has been caught. I am not too bothered what sentence he gets I just didn’t want him to get away with it with no repercussions.
“I would just like to say thanks to everyone who helped in the appeal and the M.E.N. for sharing the footage and helping track him down.”
