A PERSISTENT bike thief was caught red-handed trying to steal from the cycle park at York Railway Station.

Mark Douglas Taylor, 40 had bolt croppers, wire cutters and a set of alan keys in a bag when British Transport Police spotted him “acting furtively” among the parked bicycles by Platform One at 11pm, Martin Butterworth, prosecuting, said.

He told the officers: “It is pretty obvious what I was going to do”.

They took his theft tools off him. Two days later he was caught stealing a £29.99 bicycle multi-tool from Halfords on Foss Islands Road.

The station arrest was the second time he had been caught on a bike- stealing expedition. In March, he admitted theft of a bicycle and going equipped to steal in Station Road, York, on January 19 with another set of bolt croppers and wire cutters which were also taken off him.

Taylor, who used to live at Nicholas Gardens, off Hull Road, York, pleaded guilty to going equipped for theft and possession of Valium at York Railway Station on June 4.

Magistrates revoked the community order he was given last month for the Halfords theft on June 6 which he had also admitted and sentenced him for all three with a community order of 120 hours’ unpaid work plus ten days’ rehabilitative activities and ordered him to pay £85 prosecution costs and £85 statutory surcharge.

They also confiscated his bike stealing equipment permanently, just as their colleagues had in March when he was fined for the January offence.

For Taylor, John Howard said he had moved from York to live with his mother in West Yorkshire following the break-up of a relationship and the loss of his job.

“He intends to stay in Rothwell for the rest of his life,” said the defence solicitor.

Taylor had been in trouble with police in the past for drug offences but while he was in work and in the relationship, he had been law-abiding.

After he lost both, he had gone back to his old ways with drugs and stealing.

Mr Butterworth said Taylor had initially claimed he “liked to have a look at nice bikes” when he was arrested at York Railway Station, but then accepted his real reason for being at the bike park was to steal bikes.