Mobile muggers get jail term

Tough government guidelines mean a long jail term

Four teenage members of a mobile phone theft gang have been jailed for over ten years under tough new government guidelines.

The young men threatened their victims with violence and knives before stealing their mobiles at public places around Cardiff.

It comes four months after the Lord Chief Justice made courts clampdown on mobile muggers by handing down jail terms.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of phone thefts - over 700,000 were stolen across England and Wales last year.

The gang terrorised Cardiff mobile phone users

The gang's eldest member, Jason Roberts, 19, of the Roath area, was sentenced for his 100th offence, admitting two robberies.

Vincent Pace, 17, of Pentrebane and two boys aged 15 also admitted a string of street attacks on teenage victims in the city.

Cardiff Crown Court heard Pace told one victim of the same age: "I've got a knife in my pocket - I'll gut you with it."

Another time, he held a screwdriver to a victim's throat, robbing the 14-year-old of £2.

Roberts told a victim: "I'm going to smash your face in" before stealing his mobile phone.

Pace admitted to robbery, theft and an attempted robbery. Both were sentenced to three years at a young offendes' institution.

One of the 15-year-olds - neither of whom can be named - laughed as he was given the same term for two robberies.

The other receives an 18-month detention and training order - the minimum sentence under the new laws passed in January.

Theft surge

A Home Office study published January showed thefts of mobile phones in England and Wales have surged, with more than 700,000 snatched in 2001.

That is more than double the 330,000 figure recorded by police forces - one every three minutes.

Schoolchildren are at least five times more likely to be targeted by mobile phone thieves than adults, with 48% of victims aged under 18.

Statistics given to BBC News Online showed 4% of Welsh children aged 11 to 16 had their mobile phone stolen last year.

Also in January, Lord Woolf intervened at the Court of Appeal to increase the sentence given to two teenage mobile robbers.

He said a jail sentence should usually be the only option used by courts regardless of the thief's age or previous convictions.

'Thoroughly unpleasant'

Defending one of the Cardiff youths in court, Huw Evans admitted: "We are all conscious of political concerns about offences of this type.

"These offences were thoroughly unpleasant."

Judge Philip Richards told them: "These robberies were in public places in and where young people have been targeted.

"You used bullying, threats and weapons to rob these people of mobiles which were highly valued and which they could ill-afford to lose.

"People who commit offences of that nature must understand that courts will respond with severe punishment."