Telegraph UK

Published: 7:00AM BST 21 Jul 2009

Lesley Dedman put her mangled Daimler ladies' push bike in the back of her car and drove home and called the police Photo: BNPS

Lesley Dedman, a former town mayor, spotted the man peddling off when she looked out of her bathroom window.

Although wet-through, she was so enraged that she threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and jumped in her Jaguar car.

She drove for nearly a mile before over-taking and then swerving in front of the man, causing him to slam into the side of her car.

The offender gave her a mouthful of abuse until she told him he had stolen her bike, at which point he ran off limping from an injury caused by the collision.

Grandmother Mrs Dedman, of Longham, near Ferndown, Dorset, said: "I was shaking with a mixture of fear and rage and was soaking wet at the time, I must have looked like a wild woman.

"I was just so livid that somebody could take my bike that I was determined to get it back. I would do the same again."

Mrs Dedman, who is 5ft 5ins tall, was shocked when she realised the thief was not a youth as she had thought but a burly, middle-aged man.

She added: "Luckily he grabbed a bag he had put in the front basket and hobbled off."

Mrs Dedman put her mangled Daimler ladies' push bike in the back of her car and drove home and called the police.

The thief is described as being 6ft tall, had ginger and brown hair and was wearing a white baseball cap at the time.

Dorset police is now investigating the theft.