A Belgian pet shop owner says this is Femke Van den Driessche’s brother and father on CCTV stealing two parakeets from her.

 

The story of a bike containing a motor being found at the World Cyclocross Championships in Belgium at the weekend was bizarre in itself.

But it was compounded when a Belgian chip shop owner made a one-line public statement claiming he owned the bike that has been linked to European and Belgium U23 champion Femke Van den Driessche (19).

And now the situation is heading for farce with news that a pet shop owner has come forward to claim that Van den Driessche’s brother Niels and father Peter stole two exotic birds from her; parakeets to be precise.

Niels Van den Driessche is also currently serving a ban from cycling for doping.

Of course none of these developments makes Femke Van den Driessche guilty of bike doping; which she has denied.

But the allegation her father and brother stole exotic birds and were captured doing so on CCTV heaps more pressure on the young rider’s shoulders.

Pet shop owner Patricia Inghelbrecht has told reporters in Belgium she read the newspaper reports about Femke Van den Driessche being linked to the bike with the motor in Zolder on Saturday.

She added she immediately realised who her brother and father were.

They were the men accused of stealing two parakeets from her shop De Gouldamandine in Varsenare last February.

 

In happier times: Two parakeets – though not the actual ones stolen in Belgium.

 

“I knew the name of two of the perpetrators and had also learned that (brother Niels) was a cyclist suspended for doping,” Inghelbrecht told hln.be.

“I never made the connection with the hoopla surrounding Femke Van den Driessche to me until this morning while reading the newspaper.”

She recalled them being very friendly when they visited her shop last year before allegedly stealing the birds.

“They stepped around the shop and watched all the birds carefully. I do not normally get suspicious, but I kept still 10 minutes into the holes on the camera images.”

She alleged as she dealt with another customer the men opened the birds’ cages, took them out and placed them into bags and simply left the shop.

“They even thanked me because they were allowed to look around for a while,” she said.

“The parakeets were quiet as it was dark in those (bags) and they thought it was night.”

When she realised the birds were gone, she replayed the recordings on the cameras in the shop and took stills from the footage.

And after posting the photos on Facebook, a number of people made contact naming the father and son and a third man as the suspects.