Islington woman robbed of phone while carrying five-month-old son
Police at the launch of their moped crime crackdown outside Angel Tube on Monday (Picture: Met Police) - Credit: Archant
An Islington woman who had her phone snatched from her hand in broad daylight while carrying her five-month-old son has told the Gazette: “I just don’t feel safe here sometimes.”
The woman, from Upper Holloway, was just metres from her house when the thief struck, taking the phone from her hand before “taunting” her.
“Because he saw the baby he really slowly did a U-turn and I felt like he was almost taunting me,” the woman said.
“I think he quickly realised I had my baby so what could I actually do? So he cycled back down the road and he met his friend.”
Luckily her apartment block did catch the incident on CCTV but police have been unable to recover her phone.
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“The first thing I thought of when he took the phone is that I had five months’ worth of baby pictures that I hadn’t backed up, and I’d lost them all,” she said.
This isn’t even the first time the woman, who wished to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, has experienced a crime of this nature.
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“It did actually happen to me in Farringdon,” she said. “I was heavily pregnant, and it was two guys on a scooter who mounted the pavement, pushed me into the wall and tried to take my phone, but because it was cold and they had gloves on it slipped out of their hands.”
The woman said police deserve more credit for the work they are doing to combat the crime, adding more people need to be made aware of the risk. It was reported in June how up to 50 phones a week are snatched in Islington alone, making it one of the worst boroughs for the crime in London.
“I just wanted to raise awareness of how much it’s going on in Islington and also how hard the police are working to help residents,” she said.
“The police said that mums and babies are really easy targets because what are you going to do – leave your baby and run after them? So I think for mums as well we just need to be really vigilant.”
