Last year, Natalie Mitchel, 29, had her phone stolen on Oxford Street, in central London. She got in touch with Your Voice, Your BBC News to say she now feels on edge when visiting the capital.
“It’s really unnerving being here and obviously I’m not sure who is around me. I’m worried about my bag, I’m worried about my phone,” she said.
“I think the Met Police should be doing a lot more – possibly setting up some more CCTV surveillance or seeing if there’s any way they’ve got some undercover police officers just to tackle this problem.
“I think because of the number of cases and the number of people getting in touch with them, they don’t have the resources and capacity to deal with all these cases.”
For its part, the Metropolitan Police – which has taken to TikTok, external and other social media platforms with various videos of officers tackling phone snatchers in recent months – says personal robbery has been reduced by 13% and theft is down 14% in London so far this year. It says up to 80 more officers are joining the West End team to focus on crimes such as phone robbery.
The force will have to lose almost 2,000 officers, as well as cut a number of services to deal with a £260m hole in its budget over the next year.
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said the Met was boosting visible neighbourhood policing across London and deploying special operations in hotspot areas, like Westminster and the West End, which it credits for hundreds of arrests and thousands of handsets seized.
Criticising the ease of repurposing stolen phones, he added: “I will continue to call on the mobile phone industry to go harder and faster in designing out this crime by making stolen devices unusable.
“We need coordinated global action to shut down this trade and build a safer London for everyone.”
