Kirsty Haywood’s iPhone 11 became just another statistic at 11.30pm on July 10, when a hooded figure grabbed it outside Waterloo station. “I was just sending a text. There was this sensation of it suddenly being taken out of my hand,” she remembers. “All I saw was the back of him. He’s got his hood up and is jogging across the road with my phone and that was it.”
Haywood, 25, found the experience understandably frightening. “I’m a small woman and he’s man. You don’t know if they’re armed or have some other weapon if you try to get it back.” The sense of violation only grew from there. Once a friend managed to book an Uber so she could get home to Sheen and cancel her debit and credit cards, it became apparent the thief had reset her Apple ID and disabled access to Find My Phone.
“The most terrifying thing was my device was now open to use and snoop, I didn’t know what they were doing,” she says. Haywood works at an advertising brand agency, and all her work details were on her device. “It’s so invasive and alien to think a complete stranger is on your work email and Microsoft Teams,” she says. “When I finally spoke to a friend in Australia, she said she’d sent me a Snapchat message at 4am and it had been opened. It’s a scary thought - they were roaming freely around my phone.”
While Haywood reported the theft to the police, nothing ever came of it. “I got the crime reference number and admitted defeat,” she says. “It’s surprising how little is being done and feels like a rite of passage if you live in London at the moment.”
If you’re a Londoner reading this, there’s a high chance that you or someone you know had your phone snatched this year. A phone is now stolen in the capital every six minutes (around 64,000 devices annually), with the government (finally) sounding the alarm over a 150 per cent increase in this criminal activity.
For many victims, it feels like the police are doing nothing to stem the tide of this crime epidemic – particularly when over half of these thefts are “screened out” for further investigation by the Metropolitan Police.
Sometimes phone snatching turns violent. Journalist Ant Noonan, 28, was punched in the side of the head for his phone as he made his way home at midnight from a gig at Finsbury Park’s Night Owl bar in May last year. “A guy just grabbed me and said: ‘What have you got? Give me your phone!’” Noonan recalls. “I saw his fist come around towards me. I was quite shocked. It’s been a long time since anyone has punched me.”
Noonan is surprisingly sanguine about the incident. The drummer in his band, Drum Tower, had been mugged for his phone just weeks earlier and had hundreds of pounds siphoned from his Apple Pay account. Noonan feels he got away lightly. “I’m born and bred in London and there’s always crime,” says Noonan who reported the mugging the next morning. He was sent an email with a crime reference number but never heard from the officer in his case again. “I think phone snatching is one police don’t have much time to do anything about. They’ve got a million other things going on.”
But is this received wisdom, that phone theft is not a priority for the police, accurate?
While investigating this crime epidemic, The Standard was invited to ride along with PC Jordan Smith and Acting Inspector James Shelton of the City of London Police – the territorial force, separate from the Metropolitan Police, that polices the Square Mile. “Mobile phone thefts, or snatches as it has been termed, is a priority for us,” A/Insp Shelton says.
In March, the officers caught one of London’s most prolific phone snatchers: Sonny Stringer. They used their unmarked Volvo XC90 to knock Stringer off his e-bike as he fled after terrorising victims in the West End and the Square Mile. Stringer, 28, was jailed for grabbing an astonishing 24 mobile phones in little over an hour.
Taking a single career criminal off the streets can prevent scores of thefts. Gangs of organised thieves on e-bikes and mopeds are responsible for a high percentage of London’s phone thefts, often selling them on at pawn shops to make quick cash.
Many others have been tracked to other countries, including China, Hong Kong and Algeria.
When we join them, A/Insp Shelton and PC Smith are spending their nights on patrol as part of the Targeted Intercept and Tactical ANPR team, TITAN for short. Launched in August this year, TITAN is dedicated to tackling serious and organised crime using ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) to track down suspicious vehicles.
After a briefing at the City of London police force’s Bishopsgate headquarters near London Liverpool Street station, we join TITAN on their mission to target the phone snatchers, drug suppliers, money launderers, and criminals controlling modern slavery and human trafficking.
It’s not long after 6pm when a motorcyclist, whose bike is registered and insured at two different addresses, catches the suspicion of PC Smith as he checks number plates on the police database. The young man is stopped on Bankside, slightly surprised to be boxed-in by several police cars. Records show he has had three prangs in as many weeks - but has committed no crime. He’s let off with a stern warning about his speed.
Within an hour, three men suspected of a mass shoplifting spree across London are stopped in Surrey Street, near Somerset House. They fail in their attempt to make off from police in a battered silver Audi A3. Officers search every inch of the car, including behind door panels before handcuffing the detained suspects.
No phone snatchers are caught on our shift, but TITAN has made 40 arrests and seized nearly 357 wraps of drugs, 13 weapons and thousands in cash since August. “Our success is through the roof,” says A/Insp Shelton. “The message is clear: Don’t come to the City of London because we have our units out there to try and catch you. We are preventing these offences.”
Detective Superintendent Richard Waight - head of the force’s investigation services - says the aim is to “strike fear into serious organised crime gangs that travel through and operate in the City”. Offenders “face a ring of steel and run a very high risk of being caught and brought to justice”, he adds.
The City’s “ring of steel” was first enacted in the Nineties, in response to the IRA bombing campaign. Roads were narrowed, while chicanes and concrete barriers were added, along with thousands of CCTV cameras. Now this anti-terrorism architecture has been re-orientated to fighting London’s new scourge: phone theft.
But unless your phone is snatched within the Square Mile – or your assailant flees through its streets – TITAN can’t help you. Victims like Haywood and Noonan may never see their assailants bought to justice.
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The Met is targeting phone snatching too during the holiday season, with more patrols and pop-up police stations in Westminster, Westfield, Oxford Street, Battersea and major transport hubs.
A recent operation saw four prolific thieves jailed for handling more than 5,000 stolen phones. Victims had thousands stolen from their bank accounts which was spent on designer clothing and loans, with the cost of their crimes totalling £5.1 million.
Commander Owain Richards said: “We do not underestimate the impact these crimes have on Londoners and are doing all we can to tackle phone thefts. This includes increased policing in hotspot areas and making better use of technology.
“However we need the phone companies to play their part and make it more difficult for criminals to re-sell these stolen devices. The Met will be speaking with them in the coming weeks to push this issue even further.”
