A bike theft victim says he feels “very let down” after his £2,000 bike was stolen just metres from a CCTV camera.

The silver Genesis road bike, worth about £2,000, was chained up at the bike rack outside Witham Leisure Centre in Spinks Lane before it was stolen between 6.15pm and 8.30pm on April 13.

Jason Bridge, 46, of Milton Road, Witham, said it took police two weeks to obtain the footage, but only after he made repeated requests for it.

He said: “It’s taken all this time and it doesn’t seem as if they can see anything from it.

“The place is only nine months old – it should be able to zoom in on a 10p piece.

"This is a CCTV camera, I don’t know how many pixels it has, about four I think.

“They have a camera 19 metres away from where it was stolen.”

The bricklayer said he was originally told the police could take no action because leisure centre staff did not know how to produce a still from video footage.

Following inquiries by the Times, a spokesman for Essex Police said officers had collected the CCTV footage.

The suspect was a white man who wore a blue top and black bobble hat.

Anyone with information about the theft can contact police at Braintree on 101.