More than 26,000 bicycles were reported stolen to the Metropolitan Police last year, up a third on five years ago, BBC London has learned.

Arrests for thefts and numbers of bikes recovered by the police are also down on last year.
Cycle campaign groups say the figures only tell part of the picture as only one-in-four people report stolen bicycles to police.
The police say owners need to take more responsibility for their bikes.
Cyclist Rob Patterson has had two bikes stolen from the racks at Liverpool Street Station.
On the second occasion he told the police he had seen his bike on an online trading website, but the police did not return his call.
"It seems like they're resigned to the fact that bikes are going to get stolen," he said.
"I effectively did some detective work for them, and I was cast-iron sure I'd caught them a bike thief. They just weren't interested. It makes me really angry to be honest."
A Freedom of Information request by the BBC showed that despite more thefts being reported to the police, in the past 12 months arrests for bike thefts have fallen by 10% and the number of bikes recovered by the force is down for the second consecutive year.
Just under 1,000 bikes - less than 4% - were tracked down by Scotland Yard in the last financial year.
Mike Cavenett of the London Cycling Campaign group said the figures only gave part of the picture.
"Only about one in four bikes in London is reported stolen. That means there could be around 100,000 bikes stolen every year, which is clearly a huge problem.
"The government's spending a lot of money encouraging people to ride their bike and when their bike is stolen about two-thirds of them don't get back on a bike," he said.
But the Met's Cycle Task Force, set up in 2010, says owners can do more to safeguard their bikes.
Sgt Paul Davey said: "If everyone had their bike registered and we had a contact detail which is linked to a security marking which is linked to the frame number on a bike - they're both unique - we could get bikes back to people all the time.
"We could raise that number from 4% up to 100%."


South Sudan President Salva Kiir has reappointed bitter rival Riek Machar as vice-president as part of a peace deal aimed at ending more than two years of war, state television reported.

The civil conflict erupted in December 2013 after Mr Kiir accused Mr Machar of plotting a coup.
Since then thousands have died and more than two million have been displaced.
South Sudan is the world's youngest country and one of the least developed. It split from the North in 2011.
Amid a threat of sanctions from the UN, the two sides signed a peace deal in August last year.
Fighting was supposed to stop immediately but there have been frequent violations.
The men also agreed to share out ministerial positions, and a presidential decree read out on state television confirmed Mr Machar's reappointment.
It returns the government to where it was before the war broke out.
Mr Machar, who is not currently in South Sudan, has welcomed the move, telling the BBC he could return within three weeks if security arrangements were implemented.
"I'm eager to ensure that peace returns to the country, political stability is maintained, the permanent peace is respected - I'm confident we can do this," he said.
Pressure will now grow for the men to form a transitional government - another part of the peace agreement, says the BBC's James Copnall, a former Sudan correspondent.
The UN and African Union have accused both sides of carrying out atrocities - last month an AU-backed report alleged that 50 civilians had suffocated after government troops locked them in a shipping container.


Rome's bid to host the 2020 Olympics has been scrapped after the prime minister said it would be "irresponsible" given the country's economic plight.

Mario Monti said the government could not guarantee to finance the cost of the staging the event, estimated at $12.5bn (Â£8bn; 9.5bn euros).
The decision comes a day before the deadline for cities to submit bids.
Doha, Istanbul, Tokyo, Madrid and Baku are bidding for the event.
Mr Monti made the announcement at a news conference following a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
"As you can imagine the government has spent much time reflecting upon this decision," he said.
"And we have reached the unanimous decision that the government... doesn't feel that it would be a responsible gesture, taking into consideration Italy's current financial state.
"In essence, if we find ourselves today in such a difficult financial position it is because similar decisions were made by previous governments without having considered the resulting impact in the following years."
Professor Monti is an economist who was appointed to head Italy's government of technocrats amid financial turmoil last November.
A major effort to restructure the economy is under way, correspondents say, though ratings agency Moody's still cut Italy's credit rating by one notch to A3 on Tuesday.
Gianni Petrucci, president of national Olympic body CONI, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: "Monti has told us no, it's a great sadness.
"It's a dream that has vanished after two years of hard work, the bid was a serious one. I am convinced that you have to make cuts, but when you make cuts, you have to also cultivate a future dream.
"You need to cut and think about investments and the Olympics are a future investment."
"I don't feel humiliated. Of course, doing it on the last day leaves me feeling really, really bad, there should have been more respect. But, as I said with great conviction to Monti, we did everything we could.''


Rubber bullets were used against Everton fans who clashed with police before the club's match in Lille, authorities in France have confirmed.

A spokesman said police "had missiles thrown at them" after arresting a fan in the city's main square for selling drugs at about 14:20 CET (13:20 BST).
Officers acted in self-defence, using a stun grenade and rubber bullets to "drive back the rioters", he added.
But supporters said French police were "heavy-handed" and used tear gas.
Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson described the police's actions as "totally disproportionate" to what was happening and said he would write to his Lille counterpart to ask for an explanation.
A spokesman for Everton said the situation in the square "quickly escalated into unwelcome and unpleasant scenes, [but] equally quickly returned back to normal".
He said the club was working with "all authorities to find out what happened and why" and asked fans to report what they saw through a feedback form on the club's website.
Up to 10,000 Everton fans travelled to Lille for Thursday's Europa League match, which ended in a goalless draw.
Many congregated in Grand Place before the game, hanging flags from the surrounding buildings. Blue flares were also set off in the square.
Trouble started when French police chased someone into the square, said a spokesman for Merseyside Police, which had liaison officers in Lille.
During the disturbance, bottles were thrown at police and tear gas was deployed on fans.
A statement issued by the French embassy confirmed riot police fired two rubber bullets and a stun grenade "in self-defence".
Mr Anderson said he understood the police had "a duty to protect and make sure the residents of Lille are safe and there is no unruly behaviour that causes alarm or distress, but I can't see that in the pictures I've seen.
"It seems to me if tear gas or pepper spray has been fired into groups that include children then that is a totally disproportionate response."
He said it was "important we know what went on so it can be addressed" in order to make sure Lille fans feel "welcome" when they come to Merseyside for the return fixture in November.
The individual arrested over the drugs issue was remanded in custody at the local police station. No further arrests were made.


A couple have been arrested on suspicion of allegedly importing firearms and drugs into the UK.

Dutch customs officials discovered a parcel containing two handguns, ammunition, herbal cannabis and GHB, also known as liquid ecstasy, addressed to a location on Merseyside.
The seizure was referred to the National Crime Agency.
Officers raided two addresses in St Helens earlier, arresting a 22-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman.


Seve Ballesteros, one of golf's most gifted and charismatic players, has died after a long battle with cancer.

The 54-year-old passed away surrounded by his family at his home in Pedrena, northern Spain, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Ballesteros was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2008 after losing consciousness at Madrid Airport.
The five-time major winner had four operations to remove the tumour as well as undergoing chemotherapy.
The funeral will take place on Wednesday at the San Pedro parish church in his home village of Pedrena, near Santander.
In a statement, the Ballesteros family expressed gratitude for the "support and gestures of love" they had received and asked for "respect and privacy at such a painful time".
Ballesteros, who claimed 87 titles over his career, won the Open in 1979, 1984 and 1988 and became the first European to win the Augusta Masters in 1980, repeating the feat in 1983.
He also enjoyed a successful Ryder Cup career as both player and captain - playing in eight Ryder Cups and winning 22½ points from 37 matches before guiding Europe to victory over the United States at Valderrama in 1997.
But it was his daring and flamboyant style that made Ballesteros special, transforming the image of golf and bringing a whole new audience to the sport.
BBC golf correspondent Iain Carter said: "No golfer did more to popularise the game in Europe than Seve Ballesteros.
He was a fighter - feisty, skilful, cheeky and loveable. When Seve was in a good mood the world was happy
"He played a fearless, exciting and charismatic brand of the game. It thrilled sport fans all over the world."
"It's a sad day," world number one Lee Westwood said on Twitter. "Lost an inspiration, genius, role-model, hero and friend. Seve made European golf what it is today. RIP Seve."
Ballesteros' fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia added: "He was a game-changer. To come from where he did and do what he did was amazing."
Colin Montgomerie, the winner of eight European Tour Order of Merit titles, said: "Very few people are called legends in this world and Seve was one of them.
"We've lost one of the great icons of the sport, but may we also celebrate Seve's life. I think it's only right at this time - what a character and what a passionate man he was.
"It was an honour to play under him as our captain in the Ryder Cup and an honour to play with him."
Former world number one Tiger Woods, a winner of 14 major championships, said on Twitter: "Seve was one of the most talented and exciting golfers to ever play the game.
"His creativity and inventiveness on the golf course may never be surpassed. His death came much too soon."
The European Tour will mark the loss of one of its most iconic talents with a minute's silence during Saturday's third round of the Spanish Open.
The flags at Real Club de Golf El Prat will be flown at half-mast, while the players will wear black ribbons.
Tennis star Rafael Nadal described Ballesteros as a "reference point" for Spanish athletes.
"He's one of the greats of this country without a doubt," he said.
BBC golf commentator Peter Alliss added: "He was a fighter - feisty, skilful, cheeky and loveable.
"He had hair as black as raven's wing, a wonderful set of teeth and a lovely smile. When Seve was in a good mood the world was happy. I will always remember that smile.
"He had a very sad end but I will remember all the good things."
Ballesteros sprang to prominence as a 19-year-old, finishing second to Johnny Miller at the 1976 Open and becoming the youngest winner of the Claret Jug three years later.
His final round of 70 featured an astonishing recovery shot from a car park to set up a birdie at the 16th hole.
He became the youngest winner of the Masters at the age of 23 in 1980 and made his Ryder Cup debut later that year.
Ballesteros topped golf's world rankings for 61 weeks between 1986 and 1989 and won the World Match Play Championship five times, equalling Gary Player's record.
There were so many defining characteristics, especially when he was in his pomp. Ballesteros brought a dashing athleticism to a game that at the time was rarely associated with such qualities
Read Iain's blog
With his game starting to decline because of back problems, Ballesteros won the last of his record 50 European Tour titles in 1995.
And although he continued playing intermittently until 2007, he was generally a pale imitation of his former self and rarely featured on leaderboards.
Ballesteros appeared in public for the first time following the surgery in May 2009 when he went to watch his local football team Racing Santander and was given a standing ovation.
In December 2009 he appeared on television to receive the BBC's Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sports Personality of the Year event from his former Ryder Cup partner - and now captain - Jose Maria Olazabal.
He had called his battle against the tumour the "hardest challenge of my life."


There is a perception that cervical cancer is a young woman's disease, but half of deaths occur in women over 65, a British Medical Journal report says.

It argues that the age limit for cervical screening should be raised to 70 and older women should be targeted in health campaigns.
There was an average of 449 deaths from the cancer in over-65s and seven in under 25s between 2010 and 2012.
The report says the number of older women affected is set to increase.
By the age of 60-64, just 72% of women in England in 2013 had been screened in the previous five years.
This compares with 82% of 50 to 54-year-olds and 76% of 55 to 59-year-olds.
While cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women under 35, it continues to affect women of all ages.
Lead report author Dr Sue Sherman, senior lecturer in psychology at Keele University, said the figures suggest that older women are not getting themselves screened to prevent cervical cancer.
"This has become a significant contributor to the number contracting the disease."
She said that attention on younger women - including the death of television celebrity Jade Goody aged 27 in 2009 - had made women think of cervical cancer as a younger woman's disease.
There has also been a campaign to lower the age of screening from 25 in England after the death of a number of young women from cervical cancer.
Yet 20% of new diagnoses are in women over 65.
"We need to change the perception of cervical cancer so it is thought of just like breast and bowel cancer - that it can affect women well into old age."
The report found that women who had been tested regularly between the ages of 50 and 64 had "a relatively low risk" of getting the disease in the next 20 years.
But women who had not been screened during this time increased their risk considerably.
Dr Sherman said: "Regular screenings have the potential to catch the disease early and reduce the number of victims of cervical cancer dramatically."
The NHS cervical screening programme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland stops sending invitations for cervical screening after a woman reaches 65, although they can request to be screened after that time.
In Scotland, women between the ages of 20 and 60 are screened, but this will change to come into line with England's programme in April 2016.
Prof Julietta Patnick, director of the NHS cancer screening programmes, said: "The natural history of cervical cancer means that it is unlikely that women of 65 and over who have been regularly screened and discharged from the programme will go on to develop the disease.
"If a woman, aged over 65, has any concerns about her cervical health, we suggest that she contacts her GP at the earliest opportunity."
Cervical screening is estimated to save 4,500 lives in England each year.
Robert Music, chief executive of Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, said there was an urgent need to increase survival rates for women in this age group.
He said some women believed that because they had been celibate for several years they did not consider themselves to be at risk.
"We must remind all women that HPV is very common and can lie dormant for very long periods of time, and that the best way of reducing one's risk of cervical cancer is to attend screening promptly whilst eligible," he said.


A Grimsby frozen food factory has closed with the loss of 337 jobs.

Kerry Foods confirmed the redundancies, which were initially announced in February.
The company said a consultation process "had failed to secure a strategy which would ensure the sustainability of production at the site".
The firm said it was retaining the factory on the town's Europarc industrial estate and was looking at "future possibilities for the site".
Kerry Foods said employees were given confirmation of the plant's closure on Wednesday following a 90-day consultation period.
A company spokesman said: "We are doing everything we can to assist employees in securing new employment."


An artificial intelligence system has beaten humans at a sketch-recognition task.

The software - called Sketch-a-Net - correctly identified a sample of hand drawings 74.9% of the time compared with the volunteers' score of 73.1%.
It has been developed by researchers in London, who suggested their program could be adapted to help police match drawings of suspects to mug shots.
However, one computing expert said a lot more work still needed to be done.
Previous sketch-recognition efforts have examined drawings as finished works from which specific features are extracted and then classified, much in the same way they analyse photos.
However, Sketch-a-Net makes use of information about the order the hand strokes were made in.
When computer equipment is used to create a drawing, the resulting data includes information about when each line was made as well as where - and the team, from Queen Mary University, took advantage of this additional information.
"Normal computer vision image recognition just looks at all of the pixels in parallel, but there is some additional information offered by the sequence [of the lines]," said Dr Timothy Hospedales, from the university's computer science department.
"And there is some regularity in how people do it."
For example, in the case of an alarm clock, he told the BBC, people usually started by drawing the device's outline before adding in the hands and then finally creating dashes to represent the hours.
"Different shapes have different ordering - and that's what the network learns to discover," "Dr Hospedales added.
The drawings involved in the test were sourced from a collection of 20,000 sketches known as the TU-Berlin dataset, which has been used in previous image-recognition tasks.
When analysing the image library, Sketch-a-Net appeared to have a particular edge at determining some of the drawings' finer details.
So, for example, it was able to better able to match drawings of birds to the descriptions "seagull". "flying-bird", "standing-bird" and "pigeon" than the humans were.
The AI software achieved a 42.5% accuracy score at that specific task, compared with the volunteer's 24.8%.
"It's been described as being like trying to solve the game Pictionary, which I thought was a nice explanation," Dr Hospedales said.
"At the moment all we are claiming is that we can recognise the sketches, on average, a bit better than humans.
"But in the future this could feed into work being done here on sketch-based face-recognition for police.
"And the other area of interest is sketch-based image retrieval.
"Imagine trying to search for a specific piece of Ikea furniture- that's hard to do with keywords and the difficult-to-remember names Ikea uses.
"But if you could draw the shape of the table or chair or whatever as a sketch and retrieve the category of the furniture that looks the same, that could be useful."
Prof Alan Woodward, from the University of Surrey's computing department, described the research as "promising" but said it could be some time before its potential would be realised.
"Neural nets have proven highly successful in the past as the foundation for recognition and classification systems," he said.
"However, this latest application is obviously at an early stage and quite a lot of development and testing will be needed before we see it emerge in a real-world application.
"But I think it is one of many areas in which we'll see people using AI to improve on human abilities."
The peer-review study will be discussed further at the British Machine Vision Conference in September.


Rescue workers in Niger say they have found the bodies of 92 people who died of thirst after their vehicles broke down as they tried to cross the Sahara.

Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the corpses were in a severe state of decomposition and had been partly eaten, probably by jackals.
Those found are thought to be migrant workers and their families. Most were women and children.
Niger lies on a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
But among those who make it across the desert, many end up working in North African countries.
By Thomas FessyBBC West Africa correspondent
Thousands attempt to cross this stretch of Sahara desert to reach the coasts of North Africa, and from there Europe. I remember the exhaustion of migrants whom I met in Agadez in 2011.
Most were in their 20s and determined to continue their journey - despite the war in Libya at the time. "In our country, our talent is useless," one young Nigerian said. "But in Europe, we'll be able to thrive on it," he added.
Agadez is still several hundred kilometres from either Libya or Algeria. There is nothing in between but sand - a perilous desert where the extreme heat can kill. Traffickers extort large sums of money from migrants seeking a one-way ticket for a better life. They all know that death may be on the way, but they're ready to risk it, clinging onto hope.
According to Mr Alhacen, one of the vehicles that the migrants were travelling in broke down some time after they left Arlit at the end of September or beginning of October.
Security officials said the second vehicle broke down as it was on its way back to Arlit to get spare parts.
It appears that some of the group set out on foot, including up to 10 people who made it back to Arlit and raised the alarm, he said.
It was reported on Monday that five bodies had been found.
On Wednesday, volunteers and soldiers working in searing heat found other corpses about 10km (six miles) from the Algerian border.
Mr Alhacen told the BBC's Hausa service the bodies of 52 children, 33 women and seven men had since been buried.
He said that it was most likely that the people were from Niger, judging by their dress and how the women's hair was braided.
Korans and tablets used by children at madrassas [Islamic school] were found amongst the belongings, said Mr Alhacen.
Speaking from Arlit, a centre for uranium mining north of Agadez, Mr Alhacen said he had experienced the worst day of his life when he found the bodies.
"The corpses were decomposed; it was horrible," he said.
"We found bodies across a wide area. We had no idea what to expect because we didn't know how many people had been in the vehicles."
They were given Muslim burials where they were found, Mr Alhacen said.
''What was shocking was that they were small. There was a dead woman holding her baby," he added.
Given that so many of those found were teenagers, Mr Alhacen said it was possible they were on their way to low-paid jobs in neighbouring Algeria.
"My guess is that the children were madrassa children, being taken to Algeria to work. That is the only explanation that I and others can find for such a large number of children having travelled together,'' Mr Alhacen said.
About 80,000 migrants cross the Sahara desert through Niger, according to John Ging, director of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"They are basically economic migrants. They are in search of work. They are so impoverished that they have to make these hazardous journeys," he told the BBC's Newsday programme.
Niger is one of the world's poorest countries and frequently suffers from drought and food crises.


The widow of a British hostage killed in an attack on an Algerian gas plant in January has said she still does not know how her husband died.

Garry Barlow, 49, from Liverpool, was one of six Britons killed by Islamist militants in the siege.
Lorraine Barlow told the BBC she had been given no information about the progress of the investigation or whether there was sufficient security.
The siege ended after Algerian forces stormed the site.
Mrs Barlow first learned about the attack on the gas facility when her husband called and said he had been taken hostage by extremists who had strapped explosives to his body.
She had two more increasingly frantic calls but was later told he had been killed.
In an interview with the BBC, Mrs Barlow said she was shocked and distressed at the attitude of BP - which is part of the joint venture that runs the site - after her family were not invited to a memorial service.
The company said her husband was employed by an agency and not BP.
In a statement, BP said: "The terrorist attack at In Amenas was an unprecedented and horrific criminal terrorist act which has profoundly impacted the lives of many people.
"Our thoughts and sympathies remain with the families of all those who were killed.
"The In Amenas plant is run by a joint venture between Sonatrach, (the national oil company of Algeria), BP and Statoil.
"The joint venture has its own management and operates independently. Some personnel are seconded by the shareholders to the joint venture, which also engages contractors and international agency personnel directly, including through Garry Barlow's Swiss employer IOTA."
The investigation into the attack is being led by the Algerian authorities.
Officers from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad have been to Algeria to gather evidence for the British inquests.
A lawyer representing 30 bereaved relatives and survivors of the attack said they feared the process may not address the wider questions about how their loved ones died.
Forty-eight foreign workers were killed following the siege at the In Amenas plant.
Twenty-two British survivors were flown back to the UK and reunited with their families, while Algeria said 29 militants were killed and three captured alive.
Mr Barlow was a system supervisor at the In Amenas plant.


The former UN climate change panel (IPCC) chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has been removed from his post as head of an Indian office.

The move followed protests over his return to his Delhi office while facing sexual harassment allegations.
Energy and Resources Institute in Delhi (TERI) announced that Mr Pachauri, 74, was being replaced as its director general.
The news came days after a court allowed Mr Pachauri to return to work.
Indian police are investigating a sexual harassment complaint from a 29-year-old woman working in his office in Delhi.
Lawyers for the woman say the harassment included unwanted emails as well as text and phone messages. Mr Pachauri has denied the allegations and no formal charges have been brought against him yet.
After a court gave permission last week to Mr Pachauri to return to work at the Delhi-based think tank, there had been reports of a number of his colleagues expressing their unease over his return.
While not specifying why he was replaced, the Delhi-based think-tank said in a statement on Thursday that "the interests of TERI and its talented staff are paramount". It named former World Bank official Ajay Mathur as his successor.
The statement also praised Mr Pachauri's work in turning TERI into "a major, financially autonomous, professionally dynamic organisation on the global stage".
In February, he resigned as the head of the UN climate change panel after the sexual harassment allegations.
In 2007 he collected the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the organisation for its work in the scientific assessment of the risks and causes of climate change. The IPCC shared the award with former US vice-president and environmental campaigner, Al Gore.
In 2010 Mr Pachauri rejected pressure to step down when errors were found in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report.


A forensic psychologist has told the Liam Fee murder trial he has "no concerns" over the way two boys were interviewed by a social worker and police officer.

Dr Gary MacPherson was asked to view videos of two children Rachel and Nyomi Fee are accused of mistreating.
Nyomi Fee and her partner Rachel Fee deny murdering Liam on 22 March 2014 and blame his death on another child.
Liam was found dead in a house near Glenrothes, Fife.
The pair also face allegations that they neglected Liam and abused two other children, one of whom they blame for killing Liam, while in their care over a two-year period.
The women, who are both originally from Ryton, Tyne and Wear, deny all the charges against them.
Dr MacPherson concluded the interviews had complied with guidelines for interviewing with children.
During cross examination by Nyomi Fee's lawyer, Mark Stewart, social worker, Charlie Finlay who was one of the interviewers, defended his questioning of the boys.
He said: "I am satisfied we conducted the interview in a professional and attentive manner".
The trial at the High Court in Livingston continues.


Asian shares bounced mostly higher on Friday, recovering from the previous session's losses caused by global market jitters.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index led the region into positive territory, up 0.5% to 17,334.67 after losing as much as 4% on Thursday.
Higher oil prices boosted investors' confidence in the struggling sector.
A higher close on Wall Street also set the trend for Asian investors searching for signs of stability in trading.
Shares in Sharp jumped 11% after a local media report said Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision was set to invest $5.9bn (Â£4.1bn) in the struggling electronics maker.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.1% to 4,912.50, with shares of mining giant BHP Billiton up 2.3%.
The global miner has announced that it will book a $7.2bn writedown on the value of its US shale assets as oil prices continue to slump.
In South Korea, the benchmark Kospi index was up 0.1% to 1,902.39 points.
Investors shrugged off data showing that the country's exports in December fell 14.1% from a year ago, slightly worse than a 13.8% decline reported initially.
Chinese shares bucked the regional trend to head lower in early trading.
The Shanghai Composite was down 0.5% to 2,993.94, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index also lost 0.5% to 19,720.20.
On Thursday, the mainland index was the only major Asian market to end the day in positive territory.
Angus Nicholson, market strategist at trading firm IG, said that some sense of stability had started to show in trading of the Chinese currency after the measures implemented by the central bank.
"But the Chinese equity markets have been more immune to muscular shows of state intervention," he added in a note.


A nurse stole from vulnerable cancer patients recovering from life-saving surgery, a court has heard.

Jacqueline Perry, of Morriston, allegedly took cash, medication and jewellery from semi-conscious patients at Swansea's Morriston Hospital.
The 49-year-old is accused of stealing ??1 coins from the glasses case of one elderly cancer sufferer and valuable gold heirloom rings from another.
She faced eight counts of theft at Swansea Magistrates' Court.
Perry was working at the hospital over the period in question, which covers the three months until January this year.
All the alleged victims were vulnerable and elderly patients on ward G at the hospital, who were recovering from surgery, prosecutor Linda Baker said.
Items Ms Perry allegedly stole include a 22 carat gold wedding ring belonging to 89-year-old Nancy Thomas.
The cancer sufferer also lost two other gold rings of "sentimental value," with all three collectively worth ??1,800, the court heard.
Ms Perry is also accused of stealing a gold ring from a patient recovering from surgery for stomach cancer.
She allegedly stole wallets containing small amounts of cash from chronically ill patients and medication including co-codamol and gabapentin, from the ward.
Magistrates sent the case to be heard before a judge next week at Swansea Crown Court.
Ms Perry was released on unconditional bail.


A gull has been caught on camera as it swooped to steal a Cornish pasty from a woman's hand.

Natalie Jones, 33, hoped to "make her friends jealous" with a seaside snap in St Ives, on Cornwall's north coast.
But the "perfect" moment at Porthgwidden beach was ruined when a gull suddenly swooped down to take a bite out of Miss Jones' pasty.
Miss Jones, from Glasgow, said: "Just as I went to take the picture I felt something on my head."
She was "amazed" to find the picture captured the "microsecond" when the gull struck and showed its "really vicious claws and the beak embedded into the pasty".
The gull managed to fly away with a beak full of pasty and Miss Jones discarded the rest.
The civil servant was unhurt but said the incident "could have been quite serious".
St Ives has had repeated problems with gulls stealing food and the town council has previously drafted in hawks and falcons to tackle the scavenging birds.
Linda Taylor, Mayor of St Ives, said the problem of gulls was worsened by people feeding the birds.
She said: "Some people still think it's amusing to throw food on the floor and watch seagulls descend like the Alfred Hitchcock film [The Birds]."
Signs have been put up around St Ives warning the public to protect their food when eating outside.


Eight people - including seven children - have died in a stampede ahead of a football match in Malawi, police say.

Dozens more were injured in the crush at Lilongwe's Bingu national stadium.
The stampede happened as thousands of people rushed for seats ahead of a friendly between top sides Nyasa Big Bullets and Silver Strikers.
Despite the deaths, the match did go ahead in a packed stadium, although President Peter Mutharika did not attend as planned.
He offered his condolences and said the government would do all it could to assist the families of the bereaved.
He said he was shocked to learn of the tragedy.
Africa Live: More on this and other stories
More about Malawi
The BBC's Frank Kandu in Malawi said gates at the 40,000-capacity stadium were supposed to open at 06:30 local time (04:30GMT) to allow free entry of people - but there was a delay of about three hours.
However, thousands had already turned up, and some tried to force their way in, prompting the police to fire tear gas.
Inspector General of Police Lexan Kachama told Reuters news agency he expected the number of casualties to rise.
The football match was being held as part of events to mark the 53rd anniversary of Malawi's independence from British colonial rule.
When the match did go ahead, Nyasa Big Bullets won 2-1.


Queens Of The Stone Age fans need to be a little bit patient for the next couple of years.

The band's much talked about new album is on pause, according to bassist Mikey 'Shoes' Shuman, who says they are taking a break.
There was a six-year break between 2007's Era Vulgaris and their 2013 comeback, ...Like Clockwork.
Mikey has told Gigwise that he's concentrating on his other band, Mini Mansions, for now.
It will come as a disappointment after frontman Josh Homme said there were new songs ready to go last year and they were hoping to hit the studio as soon as they could.
Mikey says he's getting ready to release a new album Mini Mansions instead.
"We were eager because we were in a good spot, having fun and the record had done really well," he told Gigwise.
"But we decided to take a break because we had been going so hard for so long, and we really worked on that record for a long time."
He said there were no hard feelings.
"It's not like we're sick of each other and don't want to do it. It's just better to step back for a second and come back once the world has had a little bit of a break from you."
Shuman also says fans can be reassured there is new material in the pipeline.
"There will be future stuff with Queens, we're just taking a break since we had a long, long two years of touring. We'll take a break to do other stuff."
Mini Mansions have been touring with Royal Blood and their new single Vertigo is a collaboration with Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys.
"Mini Mansions is my focus right now," said Mikey.
"I think music and working with different people is the kind of process where you gain things along the way.
"Whether it's a big band, a small band, a different production or crew - you learn something from everybody, well I do. "
He said Queens of the Stone Age were open to the idea too.
"It's a very open family and everyone is free to do what they want and bring different aspects about what they do to the table."
Mini Mansion's new album The Great Pretenders is out on Monday.
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Heavy rain and wind gusts have been causing problems for travellers after forecasters issued a yellow "be aware" warning for parts of mid and north Wales.

Flooding has affected some roads as well as rail services.
Natural Resources Wales has issued several flood warnings across mid and north Wales.
The Met Office said up to 6cm (2in) of rain could fall on Saturday.
The warning, from 08:00 GMT to 20:00, also said snow could fall on higher ground in north Wales.
At Capel Curig in Snowdonia there were gusts of nearly 70mph (112km/h).
Rail lines closed due to flooding
Arriva Trains Wales said it may be unable to provide a replacement bus service for Cambrian line travellers.
"Due to the situation with the roads, we cannot guarantee a service will be provided. We are strongly advising people not to travel unless absolutely necessary." said a spokesman.
Passengers are being advised to check if their trains are running before setting off.
Check if this is affecting your journey
Several roads have been closed due to flooding, including the A494 at Bala, Gwynedd.
There are also reports of flooding on parts of the A55 with one lane closed westbound between J14 and J12 near Abergwyngregyn, Gwynedd.
On Anglesey, drivers of high-sided vehicles are being advised to avoid the A55 Britannia Bridge due to strong winds.
Conwy and Denbigh Castle tweeted that "severe weather" had forced them to shut temporarily, although their shops remain open.
The weather alert covers north Wales and Ceredigion.
The flood warnings cover the Lower Dee Valley, near Wrexham; Llanrwst and Trefriw in Conwy county; rivers Mawddach, Wnion and the town of Dolgellau in Gwynedd; and the Dyfi Valley north of Machynlleth, Powys.


When you have the best players in the world to choose from, how do you pick the best XI?

Surely Lionel Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale can't all play up front? Or can they?
Or maybe you are feeling patriotic. Could England and Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy force his way into your line-up?
Use our team selector to pick your starting XI from the 30 players on this year's Ballon d'Or shortlist - then share it with your friends.
Only three defenders were named on the shortlist this year, so we expect some attacking formations...
Who do you think are the top players in World football in each position? Pick your XI from the 30-strong list of Ballon d'Or nominees and then share it with your friends using our team selector.


Head coach Danny Kerry has named seven Olympic champions in his England squad for the Test series in South Africa.

They play two Tests against the hosts on 25 and 26 February, before facing Germany on 1, 3 and 4 March in three unofficial practice matches.
There are 11 players who could make their England debuts in the squad.
Goalkeeper Maddie Hinch is unavailable because of commitments with Dutch club SCHC and is replaced by Amy Tennant.
Giselle Ansley, Joie Leigh, Shona McCallin, Lily Owsley, Laura Unsworth, Ellie Watton and Hollie Webb are the players included in the squad who won Olympic gold in Rio last summer.
England, who are ranked second in the world, play world number one side the Netherlands on 11 June at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park followed by the EuroHockey Championships and World League tournaments. The team is building towards the World Cup in London in 2018.
In January, Kerry announced a 33-woman squad to lead England and Great Britain into the next Olympic cycle. Captain Kate Richardson-Walsh has retired since Rio, while a number of other players have chosen to take a break from international hockey.
Kerry said: "We have laid some good early foundations in other parts of the programme and we now start the very first steps in building and experimenting with how we are going to play.
"The matches will see us put out brand new combinations and explore new ways of playing based around the strengths of the new squad."
Full squad: Giselle Ansley, Emily Defroand, Sarah Haycroft, Sabbie Heesh, Jo Hunter, Hannah Martin, Hollie Webb (Surbiton), Grace Balsdon (Canterbury), Susie Gilbert (Reading), Kathryn Lane (Leicester), Joie Leigh (Clifton Robinsons), Shona McCallin, Ellie Watton (Holcombe), Lily Owsley, Livy Paige, Erica Sanders, Anna Toman, (University of Birmingham), Suzy Petty (Wimbledon), Ellie Rayer (Loughborough Students), Zoe Shipperley (Buckingham), Amy Tennant (Grossflottbeker), Laura Unsworth (East Grinstead).


Southampton chairman Ralph Krueger says discussions are progressing over a new contract for manager Ronald Koeman.

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Dutchman Koeman is out of contract at the Premier League club in the summer of 2017, but Krueger admitted there is no rush to reach a resolution.
"Philosophically, we're having very good discussions. We're not in any real hurry," he told BBC South Today.
"Those conversations with Ronald have been going in a very good direction. It will evolve as it should evolve."
Negotiations over a new deal for Koeman, who joined Southampton in the summer of 2014, are being lead by executive director Les Reed.
Speaking as the club signed a new kit deal with US sportswear firm Under Armour, Krueger said Leicester City's surge to the top of the Premier League was a "game-changing" moment for other clubs, including Saints.
"We're all excited for what Leicester are doing," he said. "But, most importantly, we believe that we can have a Leicester season as well in the future.
"We had a taste of that last season up until around January to February, it's truly changing the way the Premier League functions.
"We understand and respect how dangerous it is in either direction if you give up on the good things you do and if you stop trying to be better on a daily basis."


In a European Union that's currently dominated by eye-popping debt figures, last-minute debt talks and sharp-tongued insults, some people are wondering what happened to the idealism behind the European project: the "European idea"?

Or, at least, some of those with a long memory have been wondering. For the past few years, as the EU has grappled with economic and migration crises, even the idea of a European idea has been largely absent from the debate, apart from often vague-sounding calls for solidarity.
In fact, many younger Europeans probably can't remember a time when the EU was anything other than a study in sustained crisis management.
"United in diversity" remains the EU's official motto. "United in adversity" may be a more appropriate one.
Not that there has seemed to be a great deal of unity of late.
If the so-called Franco-German motor is still powering the continent (as the prominence of the Merkel-Hollande partnership in everything from the Greek crisis to the Ukraine ceasefire talks suggests), the car is filled with passengers with their own, distinct ideas about which direction to take.
To cope with the large scale arrival of migrants, an external barrier is being built in Hungary, while internal measures have been taken on France's border with Italy. It doesn't look like a roadmap for harmony.
If you rewind to the birth of the EU, the original idea behind it - the European idea, if you like - was a tightly focused one.
By pooling their coal and steel production - and placing those industries under a higher authority - wartime rivals France and West Germany (joined by Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy) would build a foundation for peace.
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They succeeded in preventing wars between EU countries, but, by introducing the idea of a supranational authority, they also sowed the seeds for future disagreements; between those in favour of a federal Europe and those who want to retain the maximum national sovereignty.
Also contained in the 1950 Schuman Declaration, the basis for the EU's forerunner, the European Coal And Steel Community, was a set of principles from which future members chose to emphasise certain priorities.
As the organisation grew, becoming the European Economic Community (EEC) and then the EU, sovereign countries brought their own perspectives about what membership meant.
While a country like Britain was attracted to a common market of goods and services, Central and Eastern European nations were most keen on belonging to a unified Europe, no longer separated by an Iron Curtain.
In fact, for the former Warsaw Pact countries, joining the EU was never simply an opportunity to improve their economic prosperity (which it clearly did), or increase their national security (for Eastern Europeans, EU and Nato membership were two sides of the same, post-Soviet coin), but the righting of a historical wrong.
Poland, where I was based in the late 1990s, felt strongly that decades under Communist rule had robbed it of its European destiny.
And that sense of injustice had consequences, as the practicalities of reintegration began. A romantic Europe of memory ran up against a pedantic Europe of rules.
During my time in Warsaw, officials would often express their frustration at the hoops through which their country was being asked to jump.
Specifically, the hoops of the dreaded "acquis communitaire", the long list of EU laws and policies which new members are required to implement.
I remember speaking to former Polish President Lech Walesa in his modest office in Gdansk.
His famous bushy moustache - already grey by then - twitched angrily as he told me that the long, bureaucratic process of accession was an insult to those Polish workers who were the first Europeans on the barricades, in the fight against communism.
To emphasise his point, he gestured through his window at the shipyard, where he made his name as the leader of Solidarity, the Communist Bloc's first independent trade union.
The democracies of Western Europe, he insisted, should be welcoming Poland with open arms, not forcing it to implement standards, which many of them would struggle to meet.
In the end, things worked out well for the Poles. They were among the 10 new members, who officially joined the EU at the beginning of 2004.
In retrospect, that moment - the EU's single biggest expansion - seems like a political high watermark.
The following year, plans for a constitutional treaty - one of the Federalists' dreams - had to be abandoned, after voters in two original member states - France and the Netherlands - rejected the proposals.
While it's true that many of the ideas reappeared in a reform treaty signed in Lisbon, the public rejection of the EU Constitution exposed the growing scepticism of the governed.
And the new, enlarged Union inevitably brought with it new tensions, in areas such as immigration and jobs.
Southern European countries, whose lower costs and cheaper labour had previously been attractive, found themselves undercut by new members in the east.
As businesses moved away, work became more scarce in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. Eastern expansion wasn't the only reason for the problems in the European job market, but, a decade later, youth unemployment remains one of the EU's biggest challenges.
One of those playing a key role in meeting those challenges is a former Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk. Lech Walesa might gain some satisfaction from the fact that a student activist with his Solidarity trade union is now President of the European Council.
Like everyone at the centre of European power, Mr Tusk finds himself in the eye of the Greek storm; struggling to keep the eurozone - and possibly the EU - together. Ironically, his home country hasn't adopted the single currency and seems to have done pretty well without it.
And here is another historical contradiction; proof, some would argue, of the dishonesty of certain parts of the European project.
At the same time as the EU was insisting that Poland and other prospective members met the exhaustive accession criteria, the founders of the single currency were taking on trust Greece's overly optimistic economic figures and, in some cases (notably, Germany and France) breaking their own, supposedly strict, fiscal rules.
So, one of the key questions now is what kind of European idea will prevail in the Greek negotiations? Will it be a rules-based one or a more pragmatic variation?
The answer has profound consequences for the eurozone, the wider EU - and the countries looking in from the outside.


The attorney general hopes to block a private prosecution against Tony Blair over the Iraq war, a report says.

The Guardian claims that Jeremy Wright QC will step in over the case raised by the Iraqi army's former chief of staff.
The newspaper says it has seen legal papers showing General Abdul-Wahid Shannan ar-Ribat wants to prosecute the former Labour prime minister for the crime of "aggression".
But it says a court ruled in 2016 Mr Blair could not be prosecuted.
The Guardian says the case also wants to bring the prosecution against former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and ex-Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.
Lawyers who want to pursue the prosecution based their argument on the findings of last year's Chilcot report, which concluded that the UK chose to carry out the 2003 invasion in Iraq "before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted".
Imran Khan, one of the lawyers bringing the case, told the Guardian: "My client wants those responsible held to account and prosecuted using the full force of the law.
"He is baffled as to why it is that despite the Chilcot report making it very clear that the war was illegal, attempts are now being made to prevent those responsible from entering a court, let alone being prosecuted for what they did."
However, the Guardian reports that an application made to Westminster magistrates court last year to summon Mr Blair was refused by district judge Michael Snow.
It said that, as the former head of the government, and as government ministers, the trio had "implied immunity", and that the allegations could "involve details being disclosed under the Official Secrets Act".
Now Mr Wright, who is also the Conservative MP for Kenilworth and Southam, is reported to have formally asked to join future hearings of the case and has called for the attempt to prosecute Mr Blair and his aides to be rejected, according to legal papers seen by the newspaper.
His spokeswoman told the Press Association: "He is seeking to intervene in this case because it raises issues about the scope of criminal law.
"It is not unusual for the attorney general to intervene in these sort of cases in order to represent the public interest."
By Ben Wright, BBC political correspondent
It seems the attorney general has intervened in this case for two reasons.
First, it's a point of principle. The case is seeking to prosecute people who have acted as ministers in the past and the attorney general believes the current government should stand up for them.
Second, the attorney general's team will argue the crime of aggression does not exist in English law.
The International Criminal Courts Act 2001 incorporates the jurisdiction of the ICC into UK law, but crucially the "act of aggression" clause is voluntary and the UK has not signed up to it.
If this private prosecution does succeed in getting a referral to a higher court this could get politically and legally troublesome for the government.
But the likelihood of a successful prosecution of Tony Blair for the Iraq war still seems an incredibly remote scenario.
The Guardian also reports that Mr Wright believes the case will not stand up because the crime of aggression does not exist in English law.
However, there is a question mark over the assumption, as the newspaper quoted a 2003 memo from Lord Goldsmith, which said: "Aggression is a crime under customary international law which automatically forms part of domestic law."
Mr Khan added: "Everybody, including the attorney general, should welcome this court case.
"It is an opportunity for many millions of people to get justice for something which caused immeasurable damage not just to the people of Iraq but all those others that were affected by these events around the world."


A prison has written to people who live nearby asking them to help stop packets of "illicit articles" being thrown over the jail walls.

Chelmsford Prison told residents there had recently been "numerous incidents" of packages being hurled over the wall.
One former inmate said the jail was "notorious" for being "flooded" with mobile phones and synthetic cannabis.
The Ministry of Justice said staff worked "extremely hard" to stop contraband from getting into prisons.
"However more must be done, which is why the Justice Secretary has asked us to look at how we can ensure prisons have the tools in place to tackle this kind of problem," the spokeswoman added.
Follow updates on this story and other news from Essex
A woman who lives near the prison, who did not want to be named, said she had witnessed packages being thrown over the wall "four times in two weeks."
"It's getting quite bad at the minute. The prison wants us to come to an evening to talk about what to do if anything does get thrown over," she said.
"I don't feel frightened, but obviously it's not nice - I always lock the doors and everything."
The former inmate claimed drones were used to fly contraband goods "straight up to prison windows", but the Ministry of Justice said there was no evidence of drones coming into the Chelmsford site.
The spokeswoman said laws had been introduced which mean people who smuggle packages over prison walls could be jailed for up to two years.


England lost 28-17 to Fiji in the final of the Dubai Sevens as the reigning World Series Sevens champions won the first leg of the new season.

England, who beat the United States 24-19 in the semi-finals, struck first with a Tom Bowen try but then conceded 28 unanswered points by the break.
England, four-time winners in Dubai, replied with tries from Bowen and Phil Burgess but never looked like winning.
Australia won the women's final while England beat France 10-5 for third.
Fiji's victory is the first time they have beaten England in a men's World Sevens Series final and they are set to be one of the favourites for the title when the truncated version of rugby union makes its Olympic bow in Brazil next summer.
England got the perfect start when Bowen chased down a Dan Bibby 60-yard kick to cross the line.
But their hopes were dashed as Fiji racked up four tries in a devastating five-minute spell as England made too many handling errors.
Savenaca Rawaga, Jasa Vermalua, Isake Katonibau and Jerry Tuwai scored Fiji's tries.
England regrouped at the break and Bowen scored his second try to hint at an England fight-back, but Fiji looked comfortable and there was only 40 seconds remaining when Burgess reduced the arrears further.
England coach Simon Amor said his team was "running on empty".
"Fiji were so dangerous and they retained possession so well we just didn't have the guys to make the tackles," he added.
"We blooded two debutants in the final so overall I'm delighted."
Earlier, United States beat New Zealand 31-14 in the third place match.
South Africa won a thrilling Plate final with a 19-14 extra-time victory over Australia, while France beat Scotland 24-14 in the Bowl final.
The 10-leg series moves on to Cape Town on 12-13 December.


A former deputy head teacher has been jailed for more than 17 years for raping and touching young girls - including one aged nine.

Roger Caffrey, 70, was found guilty of three counts of rape and 12 counts of indecent assault in Nottinghamshire from 1978 to 1994.
One ex-pupil was raped six times by Caffrey at his home during a "campaign of rape", Nottingham Crown Court heard.
A number of offences against his seven victims took place during lesson time.
Caffrey was cleared of two charges of indecent assault following a three-week trial.
Police began investigating him after a victim, who said she was raped when she was nine years old, contacted officers in December 2012.
Nottinghamshire Police said all but one of the offences took place when Caffrey was deputy head teacher at Northgate Primary School in Nottingham - now the Djanogly Northgate Academy - from 1978 to 1984.
Caffrey, of Sandesquoy, Tankerness, Orkney, taught at 10 schools in the county in a career spanning more than three decades.
Pupils "no older than 11 years of age" were touched while they read aloud in class, or when they were in a store cupboard in the classroom, the court heard. Two victims were raped at Caffrey's home.
One of the rape victims went to the police 22 years ago but no charges were brought due to a lack of evidence, the court heard.
She was contacted in 2013 following the start of the investigation into Caffrey, but the original documents into the 1994 case had been lost.
Michael Evans, defending Caffrey, said: "He was a teacher for a number of years and, outside of these offences, a very good teacher."
Judge Timothy Spencer QC said: "You deliberately targeted these girls, you calculated that they were ripe for this sort of abuse and you calculated that they would not tell.
"Their classroom, their school, should have been a place where they felt safe and secure. They must have felt anything but."
Det Con Rob Smith, of Nottinghamshire Police, added: "Caffrey believed that he would be able to put his past behind him, but...it has been shown that the passage of time is no hindrance to justice taking its course."


Nursery providers are warning high demand for a new free 30-hour childcare scheme and rising costs will mean many nurseries will "go bust".

A pilot scheme in England that allows parents to claim free childcare for three and four-year-olds has seen take-up rates of over 80%.
Nurseries say rising staff costs and inflation will force many providers to close.
The government says it is investing a "record £6bn in childcare".
The Conservatives' promise to double the amount of free childcare that parents in England can claim has proved very popular in pilot areas.
Nursery providers are concerned that the money being offered by the government to provide the service will not cover the rising costs of looking after the children.
In Harrogate, 90% of providers have told the BBC they will not offer 30 hours free childcare in 2017 unless the funding proposals are changed.
"We'll go bust under the current proposals," says Josy Thompson, a nursery owner.
Providers in the North Yorkshire town say the cost of providing the care is £4.50 an hour per child, but that the government subsidy will only cover £3.40 of that.
Eight areas of England have been trialling the 30-hour scheme since September, with the majority of councils involved reporting take-up rates of over 80%.
"It's a great idea and some parents have seen their weekly childcare bills cut from £425 to £85 a week.", says Vanessa Warn, who owns three nurseries in York - one of the pilot areas.
Nurseries say introducing a living wage for their staff and a general rise in inflation will mean the proposed £6bn a year in funding for the scheme will not keep pace with their rising costs.
"The government want us to deliver a champagne nursery service for lemonade prices," added Ms Warn.
The government says it has provided an extra £300m a year to boost the average hourly rate paid to providers across England to £4.88 per hour from £4.56.
As part of the scheme, nurseries are allowed to charge parents for some "additional services" like food and special events.
"It's great that so many parents want to take advantage of this scheme but the government has got to listen to people on the frontline" says Clare Schofield from the National Day Nurseries Association
The government hopes that by offering parents 30 hours of free childcare more adults will return to the workforce or look to increase their hours.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that there are 1.9 million people in England who choose not to work because they are instead looking after their family.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: "We've had huge demand from local areas to take part in delivering our 30-hour offer a year early and we are working with the eight areas that were chosen to get the delivery of our offer right so we can hit the ground running in September 2017."


When Theresa May announced on 18 April that she planned to call a "snap" general election, it surprised almost everyone.

It had been only two years since the last UK-wide poll, won by Mrs May's predecessor, David Cameron. And under the relatively recent Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, another general election had not been due until 2020.
On top of that, when she had been asked whether she was tempted to capitalise on her healthy poll ratings and go to the country, Mrs May had given an emphatic "no".
"I think the next election will be in 2020... I'm not going to be calling a snap election" she told the BBC's Andrew Marr in September 2016 .
But that all seemed to change over the course of the Easter break.
As Britain went back to work on the day after Easter Monday, Mrs May stood on the steps of Downing Street to deliver her surprise call for an election.
Her stated reason was to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations. With official Brexit talks with the EU due to start in mid-June, Mrs May claimed Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems would try to destabilise and frustrate the process in Parliament.
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"If we do not hold a general election now, their political game-playing will continue," Mrs May said in her address to the country, "and the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up to the next scheduled election."
The timing was important in Mrs May's mind. Unless all sides agree to extend Brexit talks, the UK is due to leave the European Union on 29 March, 2019.
As things stood, that would have given the government little more than a year to show the deal it had achieved was working before the next scheduled general election.
By gaining a fresh five-year term in 2017, Mrs May could look forward to a longer bedding-in period for the fruits of her negotiations. The extra time could be used to negotiate free trade agreements that are seen as critical to the UK's post-Brexit future.
But while navigating Brexit was her declared reason, many political commentators believed Mrs May couldn't resist the opportunity presented by the opinion polls. A flurry of polls around the middle of April showed the Conservatives about 20 points ahead of Labour.
And if her poll ratings were to be believed, she could have expected to be returned as prime minister with a greatly strengthened majority in the House of Commons. There was even talk of a Tory landslide victory when some polls early in the campaign showed a 20-percentage point gap between the Conservatives and Labour.
A beefed-up majority would have made her less vulnerable to the whims and demands of her own backbenchers if they didn't like the way the government's negotiations were shaping up.
Such division in Parliament would "risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability to the country", she said.
"Every vote for the Conservatives means we can stick to our plan for a stronger Britain and take the right long-term decisions for a more secure future."
However, that hope looks to have been dashed. A BBC forecast of election results says the Conservatives are at risk of losing their overall majority, while remaining the largest party in Westminster. If that were to happen, Mrs May's gamble on a snap election will be seen as a very poor decision.


The scale and pace of change now taking place in West Antarctica is captured in a new, long-term satellite record.

Scientists have combined nearly a quarter of a century of observations to show how the region's great glaciers are losing height by up to 7m per year.
The satellite data also traces the way this thinning behaviour has spread up the length of the ice streams.
The glaciers concerned all terminate in the Amundsen Sea and are significant contributors to global ocean rise.
Their names are Pine Island, Thwaites, Pope, Smith, and Kohler.
Right now, they are dumping some 120 to 140 billion tonnes of ice a year into the ocean, which is sufficient to push up global waters by between 0.34mm and 0.40mm per annum -  more than 10% of the total worldwide trend.
The glaciers' reduction in height is likely the result of the warm seawater recorded around Antarctica in recent decades.
This attacks the underside of the ice streams at the point where they cease to push out along bedrock and begin to float. Eroding this "grounding line" back towards the land makes the glaciers move faster.
"As the glaciers accelerate, they have to take ever more ice from the interior to compensate for the speed-up. This means they thin; they lose height, which we can detect from space," explained Dr Hannes Konrad from the UK's Centre for Polar Observation and Monitoring (CPOM).
"And if there is no increase in snow and ice in the interior then this thinning will just migrate further and further upstream," the Leeds University researcher told BBC News.
Dr Konrad is presenting his team's work here at the Fall Meeting of American Geophysical Union (AGU) - the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
His study has also just been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
It seamlessly ties together for the first time the altimetry observations from five different satellites operated by the European and American space agencies from 1992 to the present day.
What is interesting in the data is the individual responses of the glaciers to the melting assault.
They all show thinning over the period, but the behaviours are far from uniform.
Pine Island Glacier (PIG), which currently contributes more to sea level rise than any other ice stream on the planet, thins fairly steadily and relentlessly.
The lowering of its surface is already in play by the start of the satellite measurements, and now spreads back from its grounding line, along its main trunk for hundreds of km inland.
At maximum, the glacier is losing 5m in height every year and the thinning spreads inland at up to 15km per year at times.
Thwaites, on the other hand, started dropping its elevation later than the PIG and did so in two broad periods. Its delayed and episodic response means thinning on Thwaites has not spread so far inland.
Pope, Smith, and Kohler very likely began thinning earlier even than the PIG and show the sharpest height loss - up to 7m per year at the grounding line. But this behaviour is much slower to spread back along the glaciers' trunks.
"They are much smaller than the PIG or Thwaites. They have small catchments and flow along short, narrow troughs in the bedrock. So they have a very limited area where the thinning can spread into," explained Dr Konrad.
The study's results will be used to calibrate models that try to forecast the behaviour of the Amundsen Sea region in a warming world, and the consequences this will have for future sea-level rise.
It has been argued that this part of Antarctica may already be in an unstoppable retreat which would see its glaciers all collapse in coming centuries.
But co-author Prof Andrew Shepherd said there remains a good deal of uncertainty in the projections.
"It's clear from this study that the response of these glaciers to environmental change has not been uniform," he told BBC News.
"Thinning stopped and started on Thwaites, and it spread at different rates down each of glaciers.
"We have to treat these glaciers as individuals - not as a unit - if we want to make better projections of future sea-level rise."
Prof David Vaughan from the British Antarctic Survey was not involved in the study, but commended its insight - "the first time anyone's properly tracked these changes and how they propagate inland".
Scientists needed now to fully explain the different behaviours, he added.
Much research effort has already been focused on Pine Island, and Thwaites is about to get similar treatment with big UK-US field campaigns planned for the Antarctic seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21.
"Of all these glaciers that are retreating, Pine Island has accelerated the most and is currently the furthest out of balance, but ultimately it is Thwaites in the long term, in the hundred-year timescale, that is seen as being the big concern. Because of its geometry, because the middle of its central basin just gets deeper and deeper - once you kick off its retreat, there maybe nothing to stop it."
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos


A man has been jailed after befriending women online and then subjecting them to "nasty sexual attacks".

Albert Newton met the women on an adult services website and on three occasions arranged to meet them before raping or attempted to rape them.
The 32-year-old, found guilty at Nottingham Crown Court in August, was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Police called Newton, of Woodgate, Loughborough, a "sexual predator" and said there could be more victims.
The defendant was also sentenced for one offence of false imprisonment where he held one woman against her will in her home.
The court heard he carried out the offences in Loughborough and Leicester, between April 2013 and December last year.
In another incident he violently assaulted a woman, kicking her in the abdomen.
Det Sgt Neil Holden said Newton was a "persistent offender", who changed his online profile name and phone number after each offence.
"He picked vulnerable women, exploiting them for his own sexual gratification, without their consent," he said.
"He ensured that when he arranged to meet them they would be at their most vulnerable, putting him in a powerful position to abuse them."
Det Sgt Holden urged anyone else who believed they had been attacked by Newton to come forward.


Russia is tightening trade sanctions on Ukraine in retaliation for Kiev's sanctions and its EU free trade deal.

Russia will apply new tariffs to Ukrainian exports from 1 January, when the free trade deal takes effect.
Earlier Russia announced a ban on imported Ukrainian food - also from 1 January - because Ukraine blacklisted many Russian banks, defence firms and airlines, in line with EU sanctions.
Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 triggered wide-ranging EU sanctions.
The EU has decided to extend the sanctions for another six months - until mid-2016 - because the Minsk peace deal, aimed at settling the eastern Ukraine conflict, will not be fulfilled as was envisaged by the end of this month.
The sanctions were ratcheted up after pro-Russian separatists seized a large swathe of eastern Ukraine and declared independence from Kiev in 2014. Russia has sent heavy weapons and troops to help them, Western leaders say - something that Moscow denies.
The US and some other Western countries also imposed sanctions on Russia, which retaliated by banning most imported Western food and drink.
Separately, the Russian government said on Monday it would take legal action over Ukraine's failure to repay a $3bn (Â£2bn) debt.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said Russia had refused to restructure the debt, unlike other foreign bondholders who had done so.
He also called the debt - incurred in December 2013 - a "political bribe" from Moscow to former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was facing mass street protests at the time. Mr Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014.
Russia argues that the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) threatens to turn Ukraine into a backdoor for cheap EU exports to Russia. So it is scrapping its preferential terms for Ukrainian exporters.
Russia says it has tried unsuccessfully to reach agreement on the issue "peacefully and in a mutually beneficial way".
"Ukraine and the EU are not prepared to sign a legally binding accord that would take account of Russia's interests," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.
Later the European Commission blamed Russia for the failure of talks on the DCFTA. A new legally binding accord would "reopen" the DCFTA, the Commission said, but "the DCFTA cannot be amended - neither directly nor indirectly".
In September Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko introduced sanctions against 388 Russian individuals and 105 firms and other organisations.
The proportion of Ukrainian exports going to the EU jumped from below 25% in 2012 to almost 35% in the first seven months of this year, the Financial Times reports, in contrast with shrinking trade with Russia.
Ukraine's imports of Russian natural gas - for years a thorny issue in their relations - have also declined to a bare minimum. Ukraine's gas dependency on Russia was reduced through energy efficiency measures and diversifying sources of supply.


From the age of five or six you're in a leotard so there's not a lot of places to hide.

In our latest column celebrating Women's Sport Week three-time world gymnastics champion Beth Tweddle talks about how puberty affected her as a young gymnast and how she managed to navigate the awkward life stage during her sporting career.
I developed quite early, I was about 12, and I remember being quite shy and quite embarrassed because my body had developed and a lot of my team-mates hadn't, but my coach took me to one side and told me to be proud of my body and that everyone develops, just at different rates, so she kind of turned me round.
I developed earlier than my gymnastics team-mates but later than my school mates, but I didn't really think about it at the time. But getting boobs I was like, 'Oh my god', I was a little bit freaked out about that, but both my mum and my coach were really supportive and didn't make a big deal out of it so I never saw it as a big deal.
My coach, Amanda Reddin, was really important as I was spending more hours with her than I did with my own mum. But Amanda made it very clear early on that I could always come to her if I had an issue and my mum was quite happy for me to talk to her because she knew I was away with her a lot of the time.
I'm not sure that it particularly helped that I had a female coach. I guess it was just a coincidence that Amanda was female and my relationship was always good with her, but I'm sure it's just the same with male coaches as well.
Coaches have got to know who their athlete is, what buttons to press and how they work best. You spend so much time with them that they learn everything about you.
Amanda could tell by my attitude in the gym, just my emotions, she literally knew me inside out. There were certain traits I had like movements on beam where I'd wobble more or do certain stuff so she literally knew exactly when I had my period.
And if I looked tired or she could see that I was struggling then she'd adapt my training programme so I'd never say it affected my training.
Luckily I was at home with my mum when I got my first period. She rang Amanda and said I wouldn't be in that night but then she said, 'look you've got to get used to it if this is what you want to do'. The next day when I went into the gym, Amanda took me to one side and just had a chat with me and said 'it's nothing to worry about, everyone has to go through it', so she was brilliant as well.
At school there were mainly female PE teachers but I think that girls will go to their friends to talk about any problems rather than going to a teacher and quite often that would be what happened in the gym as well.
I think most gymnasts are closer to their gym friends because they go through a lot more with them, you just go through a whole different rollercoaster of emotions when you're a gymnast and obviously you're in the gym 30-odd hours a week.
I was lucky and had a great relationship with my coach, but some of the youngsters have come to me and asked 'what do I do, what's going on' and I try and help them.
I was quite shy as a kid and my mum used to talk to me about loads of stuff and I was like, 'Mum, Mum, you don't need to say it', but I'm really glad that she did because I know some kids out there don't have that support behind them - so that's why I did a video interview for a teen website talking about puberty [it received over 30,000 hits] so they can just log on and see that.
I think young girls think it's just them and no-one else is going through it, so if they see top sport stars and athletes, musicians or whoever, talking about their experiences of puberty, it kind of shows that everyone's been through it.
Sometimes I'd go to the gym and feel a bit sorry for myself because I was a bit sore and had a stomach ache, but actually by doing exercise it made me feel better.
Beth Tweddle was speaking to Jo Gunston.


A British man has been charged with hacking into US Federal Reserve computer servers and stealing the personal information of users.

Lauri Love of Stradishall, Suffolk, faces one count each of computer hacking and aggravated identify theft.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.
They are the latest charges against Mr Love, previously accused of breaching the security of Nasa and FBI, among other US government agencies.
A 2013 US department of energy audit report on Mr Love's activities found personal information on 104,000 people could have been taken.
It estimated the fallout of this to cost the US at least $3.7m (Â£2.2m), including $1.6m spent on establishing a call centre to deal with people affected by the data breach.
Mr Love is accused of working with at least three other people - who have not been named - to breach the security of the US military, US space agency Nasa, the Environmental Protection Agency and FBI computers.
A campaign has been started to fight any possible extradition bid by the US.


Youngsters at three schools closed over safety fears in Edinburgh have returned to their own classrooms.

Oxgangs Primary, St Peter's Primary and the Braidburn School are the first of 17 schools to open their doors again following remedial works.
Five other schools are due to open again in June.
The remaining nine schools affected are on course to reopen for the start of the new school year in August, according to the council.
About 7,600 primary and secondary school children in the capital were affected when the schools, which were all built or refurbished as part of the same public private partnership (PPP) scheme, were closed suddenly in April.
Problems first became apparent when part of a wall at Oxgangs Primary collapsed during stormy weather in January.
Construction faults led to safety inspections being ordered at all schools built under the private finance initiative.
City of Edinburgh Council decided to shut all 17 schools after Edinburgh Schools Partnership was unable to provide safety assurances for the properties.
Since then, thousands of youngsters have been bussed to schools across the city for lessons, although they have been taught by their regular teachers.
The local authority has already confirmed an independent inquiry into the school closures will be held after the summer holiday.
The EIS teaching union has called on the Scottish government to renegotiate public private contracts used in building schools.
Its general secretary Larry Flannigan questioned the national value of these projects.


Newcastle recovered from Sergio Aguero's controversial goal to earn a valuable draw with Manchester City.

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Aguero was offside when he headed in Aleksandar Kolarov's free-kick.
Vurnon Anita equalised with a low curling shot before Magpies keeper Karl Darlow excellently saved Jesus Navas and Kevin de Bruyne strikes.
City keeper Joe Hart saved from Georginio Wijnaldum late on to ensure Newcastle remain in the bottom three, just behind Sunderland and Norwich.
The England keeper's block denied the home side a winner which would have lifted them out of the relegation places.
Newcastle are now one point and a place behind Sunderland and two adrift of the Canaries, who lie just outside the drop zone.
BBC Radio 5 live summariser Alan Shearer believes Newcastle would have been assured of survival had they appointed manager Rafael Benitez earlier and the Spaniard has certainly added some steel and discipline to the Magpies.
United had not beaten City in their last 18 league games, losing the last 12, although they did at least go into Tuesday's match of the back of a 3-0 win over Swansea on Saturday.
The home fans might have feared the worst when Aguero's goal was allowed to stand but their team responded with the type of character and commitment they have been lacking for much of the campaign.
Andros Townsend's work-rate and desire on the right set the example to his team-mates and the ovation he received when substituted showed how the Magpies faithful appreciated his efforts.
Centre-back Jamaal Lascelles, who recently criticised the "heart" of the Newcastle players, also stood out with his commanding performance.
Whether Benitez can now maintain his side's improvement and steer them to safety in their final four games - which are against Liverpool, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Tottenham - remains to be seen.
Benitez was hoping the visitors would be distracted by the first leg of their Champions League tie against Real Madrid next Tuesday.
However, City have yet to secure a top-four spot to book a place in Europe's top competition next season and, while they were not at their best, they certainly applied plenty of pressure.
Aguero's goal made him the second fastest player to reach 100 goals in the Premier League, behind Shearer, and City's failure to build on that had plenty to do with the resolve of Newcastle.
The Argentine's goal was allowed to stand but such an error could be changed at 2018 World Cup in Russia with Fifa president Gianni Infantino hoping video referees will help officials with "game-changing" decisions at the tournament.
The visitors had the boost of having centre-back Vincent Kompany back after six games out with a calf injury, but he looked rusty on his return.
The Belgium international gave the ball away to Sissoko before Hart came to his rescue by rushing out to clear, while Kompany was also booked for a late challenge on the Newcastle midfielder.
"The hardest part of coming back from injury is getting back to the level of the Premier League," said Kompany. "The more games you play the better you will feel. Overall, it was a positive day."
Winger Raheem Sterling came on as a substitute to make his comeback after five games but could not inspire his side to a winner as they remain third.
Newcastle manager Rafael Benitez: "The fans appreciate the effort of the players. Everybody is trying to do everything to stay up.
"Hopefully we have momentum, but we cannot have influence on other teams' games. We have to keep believing and hopefully win the next game.
"I said when I came that it is an intimidating place for other teams. That is what we are looking for and that is what we have."
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Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini: "I am happy. We started winning the game but we could not have the control after that. We knew that it was very tough.
"The officials have nothing to do with the result. I didn't see the team with the energy from Saturday, but we play after three days at the end of the season and it is not easy for the team to recover."
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Former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer: "The one thing that stood out for me was the atmosphere. The crowd's reaction towards the players where they gave them a round of applause. There's a little bit of hope now when there wasn't a few weeks ago."
Manchester City host Stoke on Saturday (12:45 BST), prior to playing Real Madrid next Tuesday.
Newcastle's relegation battle takes them to play manager Rafael Benitez's former club Liverpool on Saturday (15:00).
Match ends, Newcastle United 1, Manchester City 1.
Second Half ends, Newcastle United 1, Manchester City 1.
Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle United).
Foul by Fernando (Manchester City).
Rolando Aarons (Newcastle United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Cheick Tioté (Newcastle United).
Substitution, Newcastle United. Rolando Aarons replaces Ayoze Pérez.
Corner,  Newcastle United. Conceded by Aleksandar Kolarov.
Eliaquim Mangala (Manchester City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Eliaquim Mangala (Manchester City).
Georginio Wijnaldum (Newcastle United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt missed. Georginio Wijnaldum (Newcastle United) right footed shot from a difficult angle on the right misses to the right.
Attempt saved. Georginio Wijnaldum (Newcastle United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Attempt missed. Aleksandar Kolarov (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left following a corner.
Corner,  Manchester City. Conceded by Karl Darlow.
Attempt saved. Wilfried Bony (Manchester City) header from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.
Wilfried Bony (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Cheick Tioté (Newcastle United).
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Jack Colback (Newcastle United).
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle United).
Substitution, Manchester City. Wilfried Bony replaces Jesús Navas.
Substitution, Newcastle United. Georginio Wijnaldum replaces Andros Townsend.
Corner,  Manchester City. Conceded by Moussa Sissoko.
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Andros Townsend (Newcastle United).
Fernandinho (Manchester City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Jack Colback (Newcastle United).
Attempt saved. Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Sergio Agüero.
Substitution, Manchester City. Fernandinho replaces Yaya Touré.
Corner,  Newcastle United. Conceded by Eliaquim Mangala.
Substitution, Manchester City. Raheem Sterling replaces Fabian Delph.
Vincent Kompany (Manchester City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Vincent Kompany (Manchester City).
Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle United) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt saved. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Jesús Navas.


Police are trying to trace two men who left a seriously injured woman and her young daughter in the wreckage of their car after crashing into it in a stolen vehicle.

19 August 2016 Last updated at 16:26 BST
Dashcam footage shows the black VW Golf travelling at speed down Leeds Road, Dewsbury, when it overtook a lorry and hit a white Ssangyong Korando, causing it to spin around.
A 35-year-old woman in the white car was airlifted to hospital with serious facial injuries. Her two-year-old daughter was unharmed in the 12 July incident.
The suspects then left the scene, West Yorkshire Police said.


The man accused of murdering children's author Helen Bailey has told a court he "never stopped loving" her.

Ian Stewart, 56, denies murdering his fiancee and dumping her body in order to inherit her money.
Mr Stewart broke down in tears as he told jurors there was "no way" he was responsible for killing the Electra Brown writer.
St Albans Crown Court heard he sent her texts while she was missing, begging her to return.
Mr Stewart is accused of drugging and probably suffocating his bride-to-be as part of a plot to acquire her riches.
He was repeatedly overcome by emotion as he recalled the early days of their relationship, saying: "We totally clicked and worked together as a couple."
The 51-year-old writer was last seen on 11 April and reported missing by Mr Stewart on 15 April.
She was found beneath the garage, together with that of her dachshund Boris, on 15 July.
Mr Stewart denied knowing she had died until her body was found in a cesspit,
Simon Russell Flint, defending, asked him: "Did you have any knowledge of her death until you heard her body had been found?"
"No," he replied.
When it was suggested he had killed his fiancee, he responded: "No way".
The former software engineer said he first met Ms Bailey on a Facebook group for widowers and widows following the death of his wife in 2010.
The pair started out comforting each other over their losses - Ms Bailey's first husband drowned in 2011 - but eventually began a relationship.
"We totally clicked and worked together as a couple," he told the court.
"I had fallen in love with her quite quickly but she warned me once to never say the L word. But then I went to hug her and I said it and she replied instantly, 'I love you too'.
"I never stopped loving her."
The prosecution alleges Mr Stewart murdered Northumberland-born Ms Bailey for her money. She was worth more than Â£3.3m at the time of her death, the court heard.
They also allege he disposed of her phone.
Mr Stewart, of Baldock Road, Royston, also denies preventing a lawful burial, fraud and three counts of perverting the course of justice.
The trial continues.


Channel 4 documentary series Benefits Street has been shortlisted for an award by the Broadcasting Press Guild.

The controversial programme, accused by some of exploiting its participants, is one of four up for the guild's best documentary series award.
Keeley Hawes, Toby Jones, James Nesbitt and Sheridan Smith are among those in contention for acting honours.
The prestigious awards will be handed out at a ceremony at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London on 13 March.
Benefits Street will compete for its prize against ITV's Broadmoor and two other Channel 4 programmes - 24 Hours in Police Custody and Grayson Perry: Who Are You?
The drama series prize sees three BBC shows - Happy Valley, Line of Duty and The Honourable Woman - nominated alongside ITV's biographical drama Cilla.
The single drama award pits Dylan Thomas drama A Poet In New York against Toby Jones' Marvellous, BBC Three's Murdered By My Boyfriend and ITV's Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This.
Last year's awards saw ITV thriller Broadchurch take home three awards - one for best drama series, one for lead actress Olivia Colman and a writing award for creator Chris Chibnall.
A full list of this year's nominations is available on the BPG website.


Scotland and Germany are to co-host the first European Sports Championships in 2018.

Around 2,900 athletes will come to Glasgow to take part in cycling, rowing, swimming and triathlon events, while Berlin will stage athletics.
Organisers also hope to include golf at the 2014 Ryder Cup venue Gleneagles.
Scottish minister for sport Jamie Hepburn said it "will be another chance for Scotland to prove it's the perfect stage for top class events".
The new event is different from the European Games, another multi-sport competition being held for the first time this summer in Baku, Azerbaijan.
It is expected to attract a television audience of 850 million thanks to a deal with the European Broadcasting Union, which has 72 members in 56 countries.
Funded jointly by the Scottish government and Glasgow City Council, the European Sports Championships will use many of the 2014 Commonwealth Games venues.
Swimming will be at Tollcross in Glasgow, while diving and synchronised swimming will be at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh. The open water swimming competition will be at Loch Lomond.
The four cycling championships - track, road race, mountain-biking and BMX - will be staged together for the first time, with a new BMX track being built in Glasgow to supplement the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and the Cathkin Braes Mountain Bike Trails.
Around 760 athletes will compete in rowing and triathlon events at the Strathclyde Country Park in North Lanarkshire.
And a further 1,500 athletes will compete in Berlin, with the Olympic Stadium hosting the athletics.
Hepburn added: "Last summer, Scotland showed the world what a tremendous job it can do when it comes to staging major sporting events, with the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup both hugely successful.
"As part of the legacy of those events, we want to attract even more top-class sport to Scotland, and the European Sports Championships is certainly in that category."
Scottish athletes will compete under the Great Britain banner during the event.
Councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council, said: "We have been chosen because of our excellence and innovation and our proven ability to stage world-class events - not to mention of course our citizens' world-famous warm welcome, so superbly demonstrated during the Commonwealth Games."
Meanwhile, this summer's Baku event will also feature the European Judo Championships, which had been due to take place in Glasgow before a sponsorship row saw the city stripped of the event.


The Manx parliament has approved the island's budget for the next financial year.

Just three MHKs opposed the 2015/16 spending plan, described by Treasury Minister Eddie Teare ass the "most adventurous" in recent years.
Plans to abolish income tax for minimum wage workers on the Isle of Man were announced on Tuesday.
Liberal Vannin leader Kate Beecroft, who voted against, said the government is still "living beyond its means."
Following an eight-hour debate, Tynwald agreed to increase spending next year by £1.6m, or 0.3%, to £545.2m - equivalent to £11,100 per person.
Mr Teare said the government was on track to "balance its books" for the first time since the UK announced changes to its VAT Revenue Sharing Agreement in 2010.
Key budget facts
Since then, the Manx treasury said 640 government posts had been cut - about 8% of all staff.
Other budget plans include an 82.7% rise in the carer's allowance from £61.35 to £112.10 per week and the end to universal free TV licences for the over 75s.
The island's tax cap will be be increased by £5,000 to £125,000 for new entrants to the scheme and income thresholds for means-tested entitlement to child benefit reduced by £10,000.
Companies will also see a 10% increase in income tax paid on income from land and property.


Violence in jails has continued to rise, with assaults on prison officers in English and Welsh jails reaching almost 6,000 incidents a year.

The latest figures show the overall number of assaults rose by a third to 23,775 in the year to June 2016.
The figures reflect a continuing trend that began in 2012.
Earlier in October, prison governors called for an independent public inquiry into the increase in violence and suicides in England and Wales.
The latest Ministry of Justice statistics show there were 17,782 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, meaning inmates are now a third more likely to be attacked than a year ago.
Attacks on staff rose 43% to 5,954 incidents - almost 700 of which resulted in serious injuries. Attacks on staff in female prisons rose to 269 incidents, the highest rate for seven years.
Deaths went up by a fifth to 324 in the year to September 2016. A majority of these - 179 - were due to natural causes but a third were self-inflicted. Five were homicides and the rest were still being assessed.
23,775
Assaults
34%
Rise compared to the same period of the previous year
3,134 Serious assaults
5,954 Attacks on prison staff
5 Apparent homicides
The MOJ report said: "The rise in assaults since 2012 has coincided with major changes to the regime, operating arrangements and culture in public sector prisons.
"For example, restructuring of the prison estate including staff reductions, which have reduced overall running costs, and an increasing awareness of gang culture and illicit psychoactive drugs in prisons.
"As well as the dangers to both physical and mental health, trading in these illicit drugs can lead to debt, violence and intimidation."
Since 2010 the Ministry of Justice has cut spending by more than Â£2bn - about a third of its total budget. This was largely achieved by cutting the number and cost of prison places.
Earlier this month the Prison Governors Association warned that only a public inquiry would get to the bottom of why jails have become far more dangerous.
Days later, a prisoner at HMP Pentonville in London died and two others were critically injured following a stabbing.
Responding to the latest figures, Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss said prison reform was her top priority.
"I am committed to making prisons places of safety and reform, where our dedicated officers are given the support they need to help offenders turn their lives around," she said.
"That is why I have invested an initial Â£14m at 10 of our most challenging prisons and shortly I will be publishing a White Paper outlining the much needed reform across the prison estate to 2020 and beyond."
But Mark Day, of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Today's figures reveal a hidden emergency unfolding in our prison system. This cannot be allowed to become the new normal."


National League Chester FC have signed midfielder Liam Davies on a deal until the end of the season.

The 20-year-old former Tranmere player joins the Blues after impressing in a number of behind-closed-doors friendlies.
Davies departed Tranmere at the end of last season.
"It's an opportunity for both club and player to work together with next season's squad on the agenda," Chester boss Jon McCarthy said.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.