Mobile phones are being stolen in London at a rate of one every seven-and-a-half minutes, as the number of handsets snatched more than tripled in four years.Figures show criminals took 70,137 devices last year - 192 a day.Veteran crime reporter Anthony France explains what's driving the rise and what the authorities are doing about it.
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00:00It's quite sad to hear people say having your phone stolen in London is a rite of passage.
00:05Your phone might be stolen at a street level,
00:09but at the top of the pyramid there's a much bigger network going on.
00:19I'm Anthony France and I'm the crime editor of the London Evening Standard.
00:24And my job is to cover all things related to the police in London
00:30and the South East and sometimes nationally.
00:33So very much when I first started on the crime beat in 1992,
00:40very much the bread and butter for journalists were, for example,
00:45fights that happened in the town centre, robberies, murders that might have happened in the area.
00:52Although, in terms of trends, crime in London is going down,
00:57the perception of crime is actually going up.
00:59And this is because very often we see crimes that get played out on social media.
01:05So people's fear of crime rises with that.
01:10We're seeing crimes now that take place that are very much more violent.
01:14So an incident, for example, that 20 or 30 years ago might have involved
01:21fists might now involve knives or machetes or violence that is just,
01:28does not justify the crime that is taking place.
01:32Phone thefts or phone snatches very much became a thing
01:37as soon as these mobile phones that we have in our pockets became smarter and more expensive.
01:45So for the average person who has a mobile phone,
01:48you're carrying around nearly £1,000 worth of an item in your pocket.
01:54And of course, that then attracts thieves.
01:57Plus, these mobile phone devices, there aren't really that many safeguards
02:04for your details can then be stolen and used for other crimes.
02:09It very much is a very simple crime.
02:12You know, you snatch a phone and then you get away with it.
02:17Most often, people don't normally get caught with it.
02:20And that in itself then breeds more people to commit similar crimes.
02:27Usually, the person isn't prepared for what is going to happen.
02:31And long after the person has realised what has happened, the person has already got away.
02:39So, you know, you could have your phone stolen.
02:42And before you know it, the person within 10 minutes,
02:45by the time you found another device to call the police,
02:48they may well be in another part of London long gone.
03:00So very much when this crime first emerged that the police were dealing with such crimes,
03:06but the sheer volume of them made it absolutely impossible for the police to investigate everyone.
03:11And I think one of the frustrations for victims
03:14where they were usually given a crime reference number
03:19and then the case itself was closed down.
03:22I think what has happened now is the police have realised that,
03:26you know, public perception, public confidence is at the root of this.
03:32And what we're now seeing is the various forces that cover London,
03:36both the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police,
03:39pouring lots of resources into these mobile phone thefts,
03:43going after the criminals, because one crime isn't committed by one criminal.
03:50One criminal is responsible for many crimes.
03:54And they know that if they take those people out,
03:57that they can then have an effect on reducing the offences.
04:02What has helped the growth of this crime in particular is these mopeds
04:07and these electric bikes.
04:09The Suron is one particular brand, you know,
04:13which literally go from 0 to 60 in a few seconds.
04:17So, for example, if you steal a phone in the West End,
04:20you can be in North London, in Islington, you know, in minutes.
04:24And obviously police then responding to that in cars are nowhere near as fast as that.
04:31Also, the other thing that is aiding the phone theft
04:37is the fact that there is no kill switch on some of these devices.
04:41So what should happen is a person can make a call to the network provider
04:47and it kills that phone and that phone can't be used again.
04:50And these are things that the government and the police are looking to stop.
04:55So one of the things that people are able to gain by taking someone's phone
05:00is access to your confidential data on these phones.
05:06You might have your bank details, you've got your Amazon details.
05:10These are all valuable for fraud and they can be used by criminals
05:15who gain access to your phone.
05:17And obviously, you may have a device that costs around £1,000,
05:21but the actual fraud that you can then commit can be multiple times of that.
05:26Police! Stay where you are! Stay where you are, police!
05:29Adam, is your phone missing?
05:31Have you got a phone?
05:32Stay there, police.
05:34There are people at the very top of the criminal networks
05:37who are operating, controlling people much lower down.
05:42So, for example, somebody who snatches a phone in the West End
05:48may well then sell that phone to somebody else.
05:53So somebody who might be handling these phones,
05:56somebody who may be able to get these phones out of this country
05:59into places like China, for example.
06:02There are, you know, mobile phone shops.
06:06We recently went out with the police in Finsbury Park
06:10that are involved in the handling of these devices.
06:13So your phone might be stolen at a street level,
06:18but at the top of the pyramid, there's a much bigger network going on.
06:22When we've been out with the police,
06:25we recently went out with the City of London police.
06:28They want to make their area, the square mile of London, a fortress.
06:33So what they're doing is probably the tactics that they deployed,
06:37you know, during the IRA bombing campaign in the 90s
06:41is to make sure that anybody who comes into their jurisdiction
06:46finds that they're simply not welcome.
06:48They're not welcome.
06:49So they will flood the area with police officers and response vehicles.
06:54The Metropolitan Police as well, in neighbouring areas as well,
06:58have now got officers on bikes and those officers on bikes,
07:03you know, are able to tackle the criminals
07:06who are making their getaway on mopeds and e-bikes,
07:10sometimes even knocking them off their bikes as they're allowed by law.
07:16So the Home Office have announced that what they're going to do
07:19is limit the number of times that police have to seek a warrant
07:24to recover a stolen mobile phone.
07:26So for example, most of us have got on our phones,
07:29find my phone and that will show the location where the stolen device is.
07:34So in previous years,
07:36police have then had to go to the magistrate's court to seek a warrant.
07:40And when they've gone to the magistrate's court,
07:42by that time, you know, the phone might have gone.
07:44So what the Home Office is saying is that
07:47if the device is saying that it's in a particular block of flats
07:50that the police can go, don't need to go to court to seek a warrant.
07:55Of course, that becomes more tricky if it's a flat
07:59or a house of multiple occupancy because it's not so precise.
08:03But at least it's all moving in the right direction.
08:06Certainly when we speak to victims about what they've been through,
08:11it's quite sad to hear people say, you know,
08:14having your phone stolen in London is a rite of passage,
08:18you know, and that is not an acceptable thing at all.
08:22Certainly victims who have just had their phone stashed,
08:26obviously there is the invasion of their privacy.
08:30But also people who've then been mugged for their phone,
08:34you know, they also bear the physical injuries of that.
08:38So, you know, for a lot of people, they get traumatised.
08:42They don't want to go out.
08:44You know, they feel unsafe where they live or perhaps where they work.
08:49And that's why the police and the Home Office
08:53and the government really need to tackle mobile phone snatching.
09:04I think the tech companies have quite a lot to do
09:10on this particular problem of phone snatching.
09:14I think very much the idea that you sell someone a phone
09:18and that's it, that's your responsibility done.
09:22I think that's now over.
09:23I think that the mobile phone companies need to do much more about the security.
09:29So, for example, if your phone gets snatched,
09:33there should be a way that it can't be sold on again.
09:36There's been a lot of talk about a kill switch on a phone
09:40that you might be able to phone from a different device or ring your network.
09:44And basically that phone has no value anymore
09:48because it just simply will not work.
09:52We do it at the moment with bank cards, for example,
09:55so you can freeze your bank card until you get it back in your possession.
09:58And I think that is the only way out of this problem.
10:02Well, I very much am positive about the outlook for tackling mobile phone snatches.
10:10I think like all of these crimes,
10:14there comes a point where actually they drop off because technology changes.
10:20And, you know, whereas today it's mobile phones, yesterday it was laptops,
10:25tomorrow it might be some other device that people might have.
10:30So, really, it is positive because for the first time I can see
10:35all the people involved in this working together.
10:38And I think that's the only way we're going to solve it.