A bold thief tried to charge an Uber Eats cyclist £20 to buy back his own £2,000 bike back, after he stole it from McDonalds before being hunted down and caught red-handed.
Uber Eats worker Harry Virgoe was devastated when his prized possession was stolen outside Westgate Street McDonalds in Gloucester, swiftly taking off on foot from the restaurant in the hopes of catching the thief.
The 22-year-old had all but lost hope of recovering his stolen bike, when a delivery driver answered his breathless please for help, abandoning his shift to pursue the thief, Kean Cunningham.
Dramatic footage caught on Harry’s GoPro charts the whole chase from his panicked sprint out of Westgate Street McDonald's to confronting Cunningham.
It captures the moment Harry hears the bike alarm and rushes from the restaurant in his heavy cycling attire, shouting 'no', as the thief rides the swiped bike off down the dark roads.
After minutes of pleading for help, a kind-hearted delivery driver offers to pick him up and make chase in his car.
Harry can be heard liaising with police, as he tracks the bike on his phone's app before the pair park up. He finally intercepts 42-year-old Cunningham, shouting “put the bike down, bro”.
Despite being caught red-handed with the costly kit, the brazen thief dismounts and shamelessly tries to charge Harry £20 to buy it back.
His attempts are fruitless, as police quickly swoop in to arrest him.
A very relieved Harry has since expressed his gratitude to the stranger for his heroics during the dramatic chase on April 8. He has even revealed the selfless samaritan was even more eager to find the bike than he was.
Cunningham was jailed for 16 weeks two days later, for theft of a bike while serving a suspended sentence.
He was also ordered to pay the victim £815 in compensation - but Harry says he hasn't seen a penny of it yet.
The grateful cyclist has since shared his GoPro footage on YouTube, where it's racked up more than 360,000 views and tonnes of comments from users heaping praise on the ‘legendary’ helper.
Harry, from Hucclecote, Gloucester, said he “couldn’t believe” the audacity the thief had to ask him for £20.
“He was obviously panicking and that's the first thing he thought of,” he reasoned. "He was lying enough times to believe it himself, and once you do that it does sound convincing. I knew it was him [who stole the bike]. He was just talking out of his a**e.”
Harry described him as being “quite intimidating” - a “big guy”.
"The only reason I was offering to give him the money was just to keep him there while the police came,” he said. “It allowed me to get him over to where the bright lights and the shop is, so it worked out well."
The Uber Eats cyclist was quick to praise the unknown driver who kindly joined his hunt, hailing him as a “hero”.
"He didn't know me, he didn't know what bike I was riding, and he didn't see anything happen, but he was just on it. He probably would have missed out on a few orders.”
Having his bike stolen had been his “worst fear”, he said, as it was the only thing he needed to do his job. As he didn’t have a driving license, he wouldn’t have continued work without it.
Recalling the horror realisation that his bike had been stolen, Harry said he had been two or three hours into his shift, picking up an order, when he was forced to chase after his bike.
The cycling enthusiast had left his e-bike unlocked but he insisted he timed the pick-up so he'd only be in the restaurant for 30 seconds, and had faced the bike towards the restaurant, making it more difficult to pedal away without being turned on.
"I was wearing motorcycle boots, two jumpers and three coats, and he was riding downhill so he managed to get away even though he couldn't figure out how to turn the bike on,” he said.
"When he rode off, I'd lost hope. I dropped everything I asked if this man could help to find my bike and he said yeah.
"I think he was more keen on getting the bike back than I was because he was swearing about him in the car, and when we were running up to him, he was running faster than me.”
He was “filled with adrenaline” when they finally caught up with Cunningham, and said it had been “really good timing” with police turning up shortly after he had wrenched the bike off him.
"When I got the bike back I just said [to the mystery hero] 'you're a legend' and tried to offer him the money the thief wanted, but he said he didn't want my money. I'm really grateful."
Harry bought the battery-powered bike for £1,700 and the tracker, lights, seat pads and other accessories raise its value to just over £2,000. He's now been working for Uber Eats for 10 months and enjoys it, as it allows him to make a living while doing what he loves.
The 22-year-old claims he got a clear look at Cunningham when the thief turned back to see he was being chased, so knew he'd got the right man once he caught up with him.
The thief, based in Gloucester, had ripped the bike's control screen away during his getaway, leaving Harry to spend £600 and four weeks off work having it repaired.
Harry's GoPro footage, posted to 25,000-subscriber YouTube channel London Eats, has been liked more than 4,000 times and commented on more than 1,200 times.
Cheltenham Magistrates Court confirmed that Kean Cunningham was committed to prison for 16 weeks in total on April 10. He served four weeks for theft of the bike and 12 for breaching a suspended sentence.
He has also been ordered to pay £815 compensation to Harry Virgoe.