Mobile phone crime soars
Mobile phone thefts surged last year with more than 700,000 handsets stolen, a Home Office report revealed today.
The study estimated that the overall number of stolen mobiles was more than double the 330,000 figure officially recorded by police.
And the research showed that children under 15 were the most common targets with up to half a million young people aged between 11 and 15 falling victim to phone theft.
The report comes days after a 19-year-old woman was shot in the head by a mugger in Walthamstow, east London, who was trying to steal her mobile phone.
Today's study added that the typical phone robbers were boys aged 14 to 17, and in five out of seven areas studied the most likely offender was black.
In London seven out of 10 suspected mobile phone robbers was black, while in Birmingham 54% were black and 34% Asian. In Stockport, 76% of suspects were white.
The figures will back a tough Government warning to mobile phone companies to beef up security.
There were an estimated 26,300 mobile phone robberies last year, up five-fold on 1998-99 figures, the study showed.
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