Woman chases phone snatchers down and uncovers their ‘secret’ hiding spot
A designer who had her phone snatched in London took matters into her own hands and was able to recover her device along with six others.
Izzy Du was walking along a busy main road near Finsbury Park in north London when two people on a bicycle snatched her mobile.
She managed to chase them for about 2km and grabbed one of them until police arrived.
She told BBC London: ‘It’s just horrible, it’s the worst feeling when this actually happens to you.
‘Your whole life is on your phone – it couldn’t have been worse timing because of everything going on with my work that day.
‘I’m running and running and shouting after them that I need my phone.’
Izzy saw the pair hand the phone to a third party, with one of them stepping off the bike.
She was able to catch up with them on foot and restrain him, while members of the public called the police.
Despite asking police to help her look for her phone, officers gave Izzy ‘every excuse under the sun’ not to return to the scene, leaving her to find it on her own.
With the help of a witness, she found the hone stashed inside a plastic bag in a hedge along with six other mobile phones.
The pair were able to return three of the phones to their original owners, with the other three being handed into the police.
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The Metropolitan Police confirmed a 16-year-old boy had been arrested and charged with theft.
Cdr Owain Richards said: ‘We understand the impact that mobile phone theft can have on victims – it’s an invasive and sometimes violent crime – and we’re committed to protecting Londoners and tackling this issue as we make the capital safer.
‘Met officers are targeting resources to hotspot areas with increased patrols, including utilising plain clothes officers.’
Some 78,000 people had phones or bags stolen from them on British streets in the year to March 2024.
That is a rise of more than 150% on the 31,000 ‘snatch thefts’ in the 12 months before, according to data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Figures also show that four in five police investigations were closed before a suspect was even found and just 0.8% of ‘theft from the person’ complaints resulted in a charge.
The government has pledged to crackdown on the scourge, with the Home Office saying it will work more closely with tech firms and police chiefs.
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