London phone thief stole 24 mobiles in less than an hour while riding an e-bike

A man dubbed ‘London’s most notorious phone thief’ has been jailed for two years after snatching 24 phones in a single morning.

Sonny Stringer, 28, raced through the capital at speeds of up to 50mph as he snatched phones from unsuspecting bystanders on an electric scooter.

In little over an hour he and an accomplice had snatched two dozen phones worth around £20,000 before they were apprehended by police.

At 10.15 am, a woman standing near Baker Street Underground station who was using her phone to find directions had it snatched from her hand.

By 10.30am, Stringer had whisked another handset from a woman near Marble Arch.

Another unsuspecting victim had her iPhone 15 snatched from her hand at Blackfrier’s Bridge.

When reports of thefts flooded into the control rooms of the Metropolitan Police, they launched a hunt for the perpetrator whom they dubbed ‘London’s most notorious phone snatcher’.

Using the city’s vast network of cameras, police tracked Stringer’s movements as he made his way through the city, and dispatched officers to capture him.

At one point the pair narrowly avoided crashing into a member of the public as they cut across a pedestrian crossing while evading police.

But they were eventually apprehended after officers made contact with the wheel of Stringer’s bike as he was about to mount a pavement in the direction of a family pushing a buggy.

Stringer eventually came off the bike and tried to run away but was arrested.

His bag was found to contain 22 phones, with two having been dropped when police struck his bike.

PC Jordon Smith, who used his vehicle to knock Stringer off his bike, told the Mail: ‘When my partner and I first saw Stringer, he was coming round a bus and was about to mount the pavement where there was a mother holding the hand of a young child and pushing a pram.

‘Those bikes can go as fast as 70mph and they’re a fair old weight, so if he’d hit the mother and her children, he could have killed or seriously injured them.

‘I had to make an instant decision, but I knew immediately that it was the right thing to do.’

He was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday to 20 months concurrent for each of the theft charges and an additional four months for dangerous driving, according to the force.

Chief Superintendent William Duffy said: ‘Phone snatching has a significant impact on victims and it is right that Stringer received a custodial sentencing for snatching mobiles on London’s streets.

‘We’d urge people to be aware of their surroundings when using their mobile phones on the street. Limit the opportunities for criminals to target you by reducing the number of times you have your phones out while in the street.’

Control officer Lynn Newins said: ‘In the control room we can manage the position of the cameras ourselves, which is very useful and speeds up our ability to track criminals.

‘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.

‘I sadly speak to lots of victims of phone snatchers and the loss of their phone is devastating to them. People have their worlds on their phones and it isn’t a minor crime to them.’

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