Brazen Witney bike thief is spared immediate jail time

Distinctively-tall David Seager, 49, who has more than 240 offences on his rap sheet, denied that the lofty larcenist caught on CCTV footage nabbing the push bikes was him.

But he was variously found guilty or pleaded guilty at the magistrates' court to stealing the eight bicycles.

Sentencing the Witney man at Oxford Crown Court on Friday (September 15), Recorder James Hay said that when he walked into court he had planned to send the prolific offender straight to prison.

However, after listening to the extensive mitigation in the case and taking account of the fact Seager had managed to stay out of trouble, the judge said he would suspend the prison sentence.

But he warned the career criminal, who was caught trying to shoplift rice puddings on New Year’s Eve last year, that any new offences could see him sent to jail for two years.

“That would be nicking rice puddings; you will have to serve all of that sentence,” he said.

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Earlier, prosecutor Bethan Chichester detailed the eight thefts committed by Seager over the summer of 2022. At the time he was subject to a four-month suspended prison sentence, imposed by a Swindon judge after the man gave false details when he was caught driving down the M4 on the rims of his friend's VW Golf.

He was said to have used bolt cutters to slice his way through locks in order to get away with bicycles ranging in value from a few hundred pounds to an e-bike worth more than £2,000.

One victim was said to have returned from an appointment to find that his bicycle, left locked up outside a GP surgery in Witney, had vanished.

Another bicycle was taken from outside Witney leisure centre. Seager was seen pedalling up on a different bike and abandoning it in favour of his victim’s machine. The stolen bicycle was later found dumped in the defendant’s garden.

He was interviewed by the police a number of times. Shown footage of one theft that was captured on CCTV, Seager denied it was him.

A series of victim impact statements were summarised to the court by Ms Chichester. Seager’s victims said the thefts had left them angry and anxious about leaving their bicycles out in public.

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The defendant was said to have come across as rather uninterested when he was interviewed by a probation officer responsible for penning a pre-sentence report.

It was characterised by Seager’s barrister, Peter du Feu, as ‘I had my bike stolen, I’ve got mobility problems so really I’m fairly callous about taking other people’s bikes’.

Passages of the report were later read out by the judge, with the probation officer describing Seager as showing a ‘sense of entitlement’, stealing bikes ‘deliberately and brazenly’ simply to get him from A to B.

David Seager leaves Oxford Crown Court (Image: Oxford Mail)

However, Mr du Feu said his client was ‘quite upset’ by the characterisation of him in the probation report. He was ‘embarrassed’ both by the probation officer’s words and the fact he had stolen others’ property. The ‘sense of entitlement’ had been his attitude at the time, but no longer.

His client had managed to remain out of trouble for a number of months, Mr du Feu said. He was now housed and had a catalogue of health complaints.

Seager, of Fallowfield Crescent, Witney, was variously found guilty or pleaded guilty to theft. He accepted being in breach of his suspended prison sentence.

Recorder Hay gave him two years imprisonment suspended for two years, with requirements to complete a drug rehabilitation scheme and the thinking skills programme.

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