Watch: motorcyclist threatened with knife and hammer as armed gang steals £12,000 Ducati from outside his home

A MOTORCYCLIST had to watch helplessly as an armed gang stole his £12,000 Ducati 899 Panigale from outside his home while threatening to break in. 

When Simon Donaghy yelled at the thieves they smashed the bedroom window of his ground-floor flat in Tooting, south London, and threatened him with a knife and hammer. 

Mr Donaghy, 45, said two armed thieves were “taunting” him to come outside and hammering on his door while another two attacked the security devices on the bike and two more kept look out.

In mobile phone footage shot through the window by Mr Donaghy, the computer programmer is heard saying: "No, no. Look, they're trying to get into the house. And he's got a knife."

Mr Donaghy said the footage ended with him dropping the phone after one of the attackers waved the knife, just out of shot.

His window was then smashed by one of the thieves with a traffic cone.

The ordeal began when Mr Donaghy was awoken by the sound of scooters outside at around 10.50pm on July 20th.

Having been targeted with several unsuccessful motorcycle theft attempts in the past, he immediately got out of bed to investigate before calling the police.

Mr Donaghy had locked the bike to a lamppost, with a security chain attached at both ends to a metal rod passing through the hollow rear wheel spindle of the Ducati, which has custom paintwork.

The bike was under a cover and also secured by two disc locks, one on the front wheel and one on the rear, and equipped with an alarm and tracker.

But the thieves were able to cut through the metal rod with an angle-grinder and remove both disc locks before the police arrived.

One of the thieves then got on the Ducati while an accomplice, riding a scooter, pushed it along the road. 

Mr Donaghy said: “I’ve had guys come about every three months to steal this bike, 12 to 15 times, but in the past the police have arrived before they got through the security.

“This time there was quite a lot of them, about six or seven - too many to take on.

“I’m a light sleeper and we had just fallen asleep when I heard the scooters and then the alarm was going off and they were hammering on the door, trying to get in.

“They were taunting me to come out, showing me the knife and when I yelled they smashed my bedroom window with a traffic cone.

“It took them 10 minutes to steal the bike and it took the police 12 minutes to get here.

“They cut through the discs and slipped the disc locks off that way.”

Mr Donaghy said the bike's tracking device was later found discarded about a mile from his home. “They managed to remove it,” he said.

He added: “This was a scary incident. They don’t care that you’re there. They make themselves really violent and aggressive so you won’t come out.

“And they know that if the police arrive they can get away because they’re on scooters.”

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: "Police were called to Undine Street, SW1 on Thursday, 20 July at 2250hrs to reports of a motorcycle having been stolen.

"The owner of the vehicle had confronted the suspects from an upper window and the suspects responded by threatening him with a knife before making off with the vehicle.

"Residents from neighbouring properties also witnessed the incident. There have been no arrests. Enquiries continue. Officers from Wandsworth investigate."

The news comes amid a sharp rise in violent scooter crime in the capital.

Last week police released CCTV footage of two riders wanted in connection with the fatal stabbing of 31-year-old builder Danny Pearce.

Mr Pearce was targeted for his Rolex watch on King William Walk in south London in the early hours of July 16th and stabbed repeatedly in the neck when he refused to hand it over.

The attackers tore the watch off his wrist. Mr Pearce, who was with his girlfriend and friends at the time of the attack, staggered to a nearby house for help but died at the scene.

According to figures revealed by The Sun, there were 8,192 crimes involving scooters in London in the first five months of 2017 to May 31, an average of 54 a day.

In 2016 there were 31 a day.