'We will seize them and they will be destroyed' – police force issues warning to illegal e-bike riders

A London police force is clamping down on illegal e-bikes by seizing and destroying them.

Since its formation in July 2023, City of London Police’s cycle team has detained over 800 non-compliant e-bikes and scooters.

The team’s sergeant, Stu Ford, told Cycling Weekly he has witnessed a “massive increase” in people riding illegal e-bikes in recent months. Last week, for example, his team seized 18, including one that showed a top speed of 70kph on its speedometer.

“What we’re finding are these non-compliant bikes that are overpowered and have got a throttle to make them go rather than pedals,” Ford said.

Under UK law, an ‘electrically assisted pedal cycle’ (EAPC) must have pedals, cannot be propelled to more than 15.5mph (25kph), and cannot exceed a power input of 250 watts.

Ford and his team have been seizing bikes under Section 165A of the Road Traffic Act, which treats them as uninsured vehicles. Once confiscated, the bikes are taken to a pound and destroyed after 15 days.

“When we first started doing this, you could literally walk out of the police station and two or three would be right in front of you,” Ford said, adding that the majority of the users are gig economy workers, such as food delivery riders.

“I understand that they’re in an economy where it’s very low income, they have to work long hours, and the quicker they can get to and from calls the better, but we’ve still got to stick to the laws of the road,” Ford said.

“People are getting badly injured and in some instances killed by these bikes flying around, and there’s no accountability for these people because they’re not on licenses. There’s no way to necessarily trace them. We need to do something, and what we’re doing at the moment is what we can with the powers we have.”

Around 200,000 cyclists pass through the City of London, the square mile district on the north side of the River Thames, between 8am and 9am every weekday.

Ford and his team of 10 on-bike officers rely on certain markers to identify non-compliant e-bikes, such as the presence of a throttle and a “dinner plate-sized hub” containing a high-powered motor. “We even had one bike that had a 2,000-watt motor on the front, and a 2,000-watt motor on the back, and it was just ridiculously fast,” he said.

According to Ford, the vast majority of these motors are bought online, and can carry fire risks from their lithium-ion batteries. Eighteen people died and nearly 700 were injured in the UK due to fires caused by e-bikes and e-scooters between 2019 and 2025, a freedom of information request made by the BBC showed last week.

“What I’m trying to do now is education, engagement and enforcement,” Ford said. “I’ve been talking to numerous other forces and assisting them, setting up the same [cycle teams], so they can understand the best practice of doing this.”

What this has meant for the City of London Police is a strict clamp down. The force made its stance clear in a warning to illegal e-bike riders posted on X: “If you ride non-compliant e-bikes in the City, we will seize them and they will be destroyed.”

For more information about the rules around e-bikes, visit our 'electric bikes and UK law' page.