Southampton police officer on e-bike tells fleeing shoplifter: 'You're being a sausage!'
A Southampton bike cop chased a prolific shoplifter through a red light, calmly reminding him he was "on a leccy" and that he was "being a sausage". Bodycam footage of the gloriously British pursuit has gone viral.
Some police chases involve helicopters, sirens and screeching tyres. This one, in Southampton, involved a pushbike, an electric bike and the word “sausage”.
PC George Arnott of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary was out on bicycle patrol on 22 October when he spotted a 38-year-old man wanted for more than three dozen shoplifting offences across the city. The man pedalled off – straight through a red light – and the officer gave chase, with his bodycam rolling.
AI illustration – an artist’s very literal interpretation. Not the actual chase.
What followed was less Fast & Furious and more Sunday-afternoon telly. “Mate, you are going to get taken off in a minute. It’s not worth it,” PC Arnott advised, according to Metro. Then came the line that has since gone viral: “You are being a sausage.” He also pointed out, reasonably, that escape was futile: “You’re not getting away, I’m on a leccy.”
AI illustration – the leccy advantage, imagined. (Spot Gaz, our gorilla, hiding somewhere in this picture.)
The battery won. The man was detained in Janaway Gardens, and the Daily Echo reports he later pleaded guilty at Southampton Magistrates’ Court to 42 shoplifting offences – more than £3,300 of goods from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Co-op and a Poundland in Eastleigh – plus drugs possession, and was jailed for a year.
The moral, as ever: you can run from the law, but you can’t outpedal a motor.
Reported by the Daily Echo and Metro (11 Nov 2026), with footage released by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary.
