Nuisance Sunderland biker crashed into lamp post while fleeing police

One of Sunderland’s top cops mentioned details of the incident, which is not believed to have resulted in any serious injury, when revealing his team had taken six bikes off the streets in recent months.

Northumbria Police’s Inspector Nick Gjorven has previously promised he is ‘happy to crush’ vehicles which can be traced back to offenders.

“We seized six motorcycles,” he said, “four as a result of community intelligence that has come to us and we’ve gone to their homes.

“There were also two where they tried to make off from police and one managed to crash into a lamp post – the more intelligence we get the more we will act on, where we can.”

Insp Gjorven was speaking at a meeting of Sunderland City Council’s Coalfield Area Committee on June 26, but did not reveal whether the bike seizures had resulted in any charges or convictions.

He also told the panel while nuisance riders are a high-profile problem, most anti-social behaviour (ASB) is the result of ‘neighbourhood disputes’, such as fly-tipping and social media rows.

And although most of this is ‘adult driven’, he added efforts to share more information with schools had proved ‘invaluable’.

As well as successes targeting motorcycle disorder, members of the committee heard about efforts to cut burglary numbers.

New guidelines for recording crimes mean break-ins at vacant properties are now recorded as burglaries, causing a spike in numbers.

Insp Gjorven said “We’ve done a lot of proactive work, a lot of CCTV trawls, and we’ve had eight arrests as a result, with six sentenced or on remand at the moment.

“Although the numbers have been quite high, in the last few weeks things have calmed down.”

Insp Gjorven has previously revealed estate agents and landlords have been advised to remove radiators and boilers from empty homes to deter thieves and added he now had ‘suspicions’ over who was behind the break-ins.