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A prolific phone snatcher stole 24 mobiles worth more than £10,000 in a 60-minute e-bike rampage.
Sonny Stringer, 28, and an unknown accomplice targeted commuters and tourists in central London on March 26.
They would silently creep up behind their victims, rip the devices from their hands and then ride off at speeds of up to 50pmh.
Dramatic dashcam footage shows the moment Stringer’s spree was brought to a painful end when the pair were rammed off the high-speed electric bike by an unmarked police car.
Stringer, of Islington, north London, was still on crutches when he appeared in the dock at Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday having suffered a broken knee in the stop.
He pleaded guilty to nine counts of theft – with one of those accounting for 15 stolen phones – along with charges of dangerous driving and driving without insurance.
His accomplice managed to run off and has not yet been caught.
The pair rode into the City of London at speed on electric motorbikes on March 26, before snatching an iPhone 15 from a woman’s hand on Blackfriars Bridge at around 11.15am.
Control officer Lynn Newins said: ‘I took a call from a member of the public who had witnessed a phone snatching on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge.
‘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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Road Police Officers PC Jordan Smith and PC Joe Little were listening in on the radio and driving towards the phone snatchers.
PC Smith, 25, told the Daily 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 70 mph 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.’
He described having to make ‘an instant decision’ over whether to intercept the pair but knew ‘it was the right thing to do’.
Stringer was caught trying to get rid of a bag which contained 22 mobiles just before he was arrested.
Video footage showed him dropping two other handsets as he was knocked off the e-bike.
Stringer was bailed ahead of sentence at the same court on August 8.
How the 60-minute rampage unfolded
10.15am – A woman is targeted while using a map app on her phone by Baker Street Tube station
The thieves snatch it from her hand as she waits to cross the road
10.30am – Another woman has her phone taken while she walked towards Marble Arch
Between 10am and 11am – A man has his phone snatched from his hand on Cromwell Place
Between 10.30am and 11am – A man using his phone to take a photo near Wellington Arches, Hyde Park, has his phone bumped out of his hand by one of the thieves who caught it and sped off.
Around 10.40am – A man using his phone to take a photo of a Post Office receipt in Regent Street is pushed in the chest by one of the thieves who then rips the phone from his hand
Within minutes of that attack, a woman’s phone was snatched in nearby Orange Street, at the junction with Haymarket
Around 11.15am – Three more attacks take place within minutes of each other
In the first, a man has his phone taken while waiting at a pedestrian crossing on Victoria Road, Westminster
Another is then targeted at Piccadilly, near the junction with Regent Street, while walking towards Green Park
And then a woman had her phone snatched from her hand while standing on Blackfriars Bridge
The judge, Ms Recorder Sunaina Srai-Chohan, warned him that despite being freed in the interim ‘custody is very much still on the table’.
Chief Superintendent Rob Atkin MBE said: ‘The successful capture and prosecution of a prolific phone snatcher shows City of London Police’s focus on detecting and bringing to justice those who steal from people on our streets.
‘This was a team effort from our control team following the criminals on CCTV and communicating with officers on the ground, to response officers making risk-critical decisions to protect the public and effect an arrest. Not forgetting our investigators tracking down victims from across London, returning valuable mobile phones and ensuring a guilty verdict.
‘Phone snatching has a significant impact on victims and our key priority has been to reduce the number of phones stolen and relentlessly target those criminals responsible.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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