Sonny Stringer, 28, stole 24 mobile phones in a single morning in March, while he was riding an electric motorbike at times at 50 mph.
A man who stole 24 mobile phones in one morning while riding through London on an electric motorcycle has been jailed for two years.
Police dubbed Sonny Stringer, 28, the city’s most notorious phone snatcher after he and an unknown accomplice had torn through central London riding electric motorbikes, snatching phones out of people’s hands on the morning of March 26.
Stringer was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court to 20 months in prison and was given an additional four months for dangerous driving, with police crediting the team effort from officers on the ground and those in the control room for apprehending the suspect which resulted in the successful conviction.
Duffy said, “The successful capture and prosecution of a prolific phone snatcher shows the City of London Police’s focus on detecting and bringing to justice those who steal from people on our streets.”
He had also received an interim driving ban.
Speeds of 50 mph
The hunt for Stringer began at around 11:15 a.m., March 26, after a member of the public reported witnessing a woman having her iPhone 15 snatched out of her hand while she was standing on Blackfriars Bridge.
Control officers then tracked down Stringer and his accomplice on the City’s camera network and directed officers on the ground to search for them.
“We spun the cameras around on Cheapside and updated officers on the phone snatchers’ path. I remember saying that they were ‘going like the clappers’ and could see members of the public having to avoid being hit by them,” Control Officer Lynn Newins explained.
The pair of thieves evaded a marked police vehicle on Fetter Lane before cutting across a pedestrian crossing at nearly 50 mph, narrowly missing one person while another had to run to get out of the way.
Road Police Officer PC Smith, an advanced police driver trained in tactical pursuit and containment, pursued Stringer as the thief overtook a stationary bus.
Stringer was about to mount the pavement, in the direction of a family pushing a pram, when Smith made “tactical contact” with the rear wheel of Stringer’s Surron electric motorbike.
Stringer came off the bike and was quickly arrested before he could attempt to leave the scene.
Stringer had thrown a Faraday bag—which blocks signals to and from the mobile phones inside—away from him, which was found to contain 22 of the mobile phones he had stolen that morning. A further two were dropped when Smith made contact with the bike and were recovered.
157 Devices Stolen Every Day
In October 2023, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley met with representatives from major mobile phone manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, and Google, to discuss how they can help crush device theft.
The meeting came after figures from the Met showed that in London there had been a 28 percent increase in mobile phone robbery and a 22 percent increase in the theft of devices over the previous 12 months, which represented 57,174 mobile phones reported stolen and averaging at 157 stolen every day.
“Right now, it is far too easy and profitable for criminals to repurpose and sell on stolen phones,” Khan had said, with Rowley calling on mobile phone manufacturers to “design out the ability for stolen phones to be used in the way they currently are.”
In May, Google revealed new features for its Android operating system which would minimise the utility of phones once they are stolen, including using an AI-powered tool to detect when a device has been snatched from a person’s hand.
Theft Detection Lock can detect “common motion associated with theft” by reading signals from the phone which would result in it being locked. Such motion includes the accelerometer reading a sudden jolt akin to the device being snatched by someone on a bike and then moving off at high speed.
Google is also introducing a Remote Lock feature, where users can lock their phone remotely using only their phone number and a security question.
PA Media contributed to this report.