A new bill introduced will give more power to police to help tackle “snatch theft”.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00A police inspector in London and across the country will be able to sign off an entry
00:06to a premises rather than waiting for a judge or magistrate in order to act during the golden
00:13hour just after a threat and increase chances of a conviction.
00:18Snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags have more than doubled in the past year with more
00:23than 200 incidents in 2024, a problem particularly rife in the capital.
00:30But just 0.8% of these thefts led to a charge despite some victims offering police tracking
00:37devices.
00:38Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said that for the last few years our towns and cities
00:44have seen thefts shoot up as organised gangs target mobile phones.
00:50So how do the Londoners feel about the new law?
00:53I mean there's a huge risk factor against it I mean it feels like an invasion of privacy
00:58if anything that's my initial reaction was it does feel like it's just breaching a little
01:04bit too far into things because you'd want things to feel like you are being protected
01:09I mean if they are able to you know scan some stuff or search things to a point where you
01:15feel like your privacy is being lost and then just be able to come into a property
01:20with just that as evidence doesn't feel like it's sufficient enough.
01:25I think if they think or if they've got some sort of evidence that something has been stolen
01:32and the persons are linked with that then I think they can go in without a warrant that's
01:38my opinion.
01:40I guess one assumes that the police would like only exercise that power in within the
01:49context that like where it's a reasonable use of that power.
01:54It sounds a bit extreme for something as simple as a phone if it was and if the phone was
02:02part of a bigger crime then I think I would say it could be justified.
02:10Just for us I'd say if it's part of something bigger then it sounds like it would make sense
02:17to me.
02:19I know that it's been a huge thing the last couple of months especially with like phone
02:23thefts up in London people going around on scooters and stuff like that.
02:27I can understand that there is going to be a need a course of action to try and find
02:32out where they go and everything like that but say there is an instance where for some
02:39reason someone drops it in someone else's garden for some reason and then that person
02:45gets you know raided for the sake of it because they found it there and then the emotional
02:50attachment to being raided is not there's a lot of implications to what could happen
02:56from that.