Mobile phone thefts soar as teenagers target children

Gangs of young thieves prey on their peers for their mobile phones, a Home Office study published today reveals.

Up to half a million teenagers aged between 11 and 15 became the victims of phone theft last year, the study says. While only 1 per cent of British adults fall victim to this kind of theft, 5 per cent of teenagers report that they have had their phone stolen at least once.

The study – carried out by Victoria Harrington and Pat Mayhew and published by the Home Office minister John Denham – estimates that the overall number of mobile phones stolen is more than double the 330,000 officially reported thefts.

It is the steep rise in mobile phone thefts over the past two years that has brought about the steep rise in the figures for street robbery, the report says.

The proportion of thefts involving mobiles has climbed from 8 per cent three years ago to 28 per cent in 2001. Alarmingly, mobile phone robberies now constitute 36 per cent of all robberies in London.

The latest findings, which studied the trend of mobile phone crime in four city centres – London, Birmingham, Bristol and Stockport – cast into doubt the current methods used to police and prevent the problem, such as the technique whereby police bombard stolen phones with text messages.

The report's researchers say this method did not deter young offenders from stealing again. Rather, they would simply steal another phone in the hope that its loss would not be reported or that the text messages would eventually abate.

While both the victim and the aggressor involved in mobile phone crime tends to be male, the gangs of thieves were predominantly black, with 71 per cent of blacks youths accused of the crime in London, 54 per cent in Birmingham and 63 per cent in Bristol.

However, 34 per cent of all suspects in Birmingham were Asian and 76 per cent of suspects in Stockport were white.

The aggressors are usually younger than other kinds of thieves, often aged between 14 to 17, and operate in packs. Less than 10 per cent are female.

The study suggests that the rapid rise of mobile phone theft in Britain may be due to the fact that they are "small, valuable items for which ready resale markets exist among those without a phone, or with an old model". Some phoned were reprogrammed and possibly sent abroad, where there is a growing demand.

The risk of street robbery is lower for adults, who are more likely to lose a mobile when it is left in the car or when their home is burgled. The risk factor increases among teenagers on the street, the study says.

It suggests that while young males may have more cause to be wary of thieving gangs, female victims were probably more vulnerable to having objects stolen from bags. Incidents involving female offenders or mixed groups constituted a third of all thefts of this kind. However, these groups seldom targeted men.

A quarter of all phone robberies occurred when the owner publicly used or displayed their mobile.

The report interviews a group of convicted thieves in Feltham young offenders' institution, who regarded the mobile phone as an "indispensable" item and said that the loss of their phones was the worst aspect of imprisonment.

They also claimed that the street value of the handset was more important than the free phone calls, and confirmed that phones could be sold for a sum between £10 to £60.

The study is expected to support a government warning to mobile phone companies to tighten up security. The report says that manufacturers have failed to devise a method of disabling a stolen handset at a cost that customers will pay.

The Home Office has reportedly spent a year trying to persuade the industry to introduce measures to immobilise stolen handsets, and to allow accounts to be cut off when customers pass on the international mobile equipment identity number of their phone.