A woman is fighting for her life after being hit by a moped in City Road, Islington.

Paramedics and the air ambulance were scrambled to the scene – a pelican crossing near the junction with Nelson Terrace – just after 9.30am.

The victim is 20 and suffered head injuries. The moped, which had a pillion passenger, sped off from the scene. There have been no arrests.

A man, who was first on the scene but didn’t wish to be named, told the Gazette he suspected it was an attempted phone snatch.

“I am sure the pillion passenger’s helmet hit her on the side of the head and took her out into the road. I saw the moped accelerate away. The engine revved up and just let rip.

“I ran out because I initially thought it was my daughter. The ambulances came and I was there re-directing the traffic.

“She wasn’t moving. There was blood in the road and her eyes had rolled back. She was very young, in her late teens or early 20s. What I don’t understand is people were crowding round and taking photos. You shouldn’t do that as for her, it would have been like the world closing in.”

In the last year, there were 2,417 moped-related offences in Islington: the most in London by a margin of 590. There are an estimated 50 phone snatches a week.

And the man added: “This moped crime is going on every day in Islington. You see it on City Road, mopeds riding on the paths. They have no fear. All for a phone? This has to stop.”

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We were called at 9:34am to reports of a road traffic collision on City Road. We sent an ambulance crew, a paramedic in a car and London’s Air Ambulance to the scene, with the first of our medics arriving in under six minutes.

“We treated a woman at the scene for a head injury and took her as a priority to a major trauma centre.”