Man, 29, whose bike was stolen while he was at the gym finds mysterious PHOTO of ‘thief pinching it’

A 29-year-old man came out of a gym to find his bike had been stolen and someone had left a photo of the ‘thief’ in its place.

The owner left his bike locked up on Prebend Gardens road near Stamford Brook station in Chiswick on the afternoon of September 1.

But he came back just after 3pm, around an hour and a half after heading into the gym, to find that his bike had disappeared. 

A 29-year-old man came out of a gym to find his bike had been stolen and instead a photo of the ‘thief’ had been left in its place, with no other information apart from a timestamp (above)

Surprisingly, the 29-year-old saw two pieces of A4 paper where his bike had been locked up, seemingly showing a ‘thief’ with his bicycle.

The man said: ‘I locked the bike up, went to the gym, just finished training and when I came out the bike was gone. But in its place I found two A4 sheets of paper with the image with a timestamp on it duct-taped to where I’d left the bike.’

The printed photograph of the man had ‘STOLEN’ written across it and someone had also timestamped the image ’14:45′ – only around 15 to 30 minutes before the man had returned for his bike.

The bike owner said he filed a report to the police that evening and was emailed on September 5, saying that a police officer would be in touch. 

He said: ‘Part of me wishes they had told them to stop stealing my bike rather than just taking a picture, but understandably could be someone, like an old woman or someone who did not really want to get involved. 

‘So they did the only thing they could do which was take a picture and give me all the details they had.’

The man had left his bike on Prebend Gardens road (above) near Stamford Brook station in Chiswick on the afternoon of September 1 but came back just after 3pm to find it was gone

He said that he tried to see if anyone from the nearby properties could come out to talk to him about the picture ‘but they didn’t’. 

He added that he would have liked to at least say ‘thank you’ to the individual for doing what they could to assist him.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: ‘On 1 September, police received a report of a theft of a bicycle from outside Stamford Brook Underground Station.

‘It was reported the owner had locked up the bike and then returned shortly after 17.00hrs to find it had been stolen.

‘A photograph of the alleged thief had been left in the place where the bicycle had been.

‘Enquiries are ongoing. There have been no arrests.’