A Labour MP has described being attacked by a masked gang who snatched his phone while he walked home from Parliament last night.
Chris Webb, the 38-year-old MP for Blackpool South, said he was chatting to his wife during the walk back to his flat in the capital when he stopped off at a shop in Lambeth, south London, shortly before 10pm.
Within seconds of leaving the store, he was ambushed ‘completely from behind’ by the balaclava-clad robbers who took his new iPhone.
He locked the new Pro Max using his smartwatch and when the police came, he helped them to track the handset to a location where an individual was caught with a bag of phones and arrested. Mr Webb’s phone has not been recovered.
Mr Webb told Metro: ‘I was walking home from Parliament and was stopping off at the corner shop near the flat that I’ve got down here. As I was walking to it, I was on the phone to my wife.
‘Then as I was walking away from the shop I was grabbed, and I was mugged.
‘It was a number of individuals all masked up, all on bikes. There were five or six and they grabbed the phone and managed to get away quite quickly on the bikes.’
He suspects the group must have seen him using his new iPhone, noticed he was on his own and managed to catch him off-guard.
‘The phone was in my pocket and I was leaning into it but then they were able to grab it. I think they probably spotted me on it beforehand,’ he said.
‘Normally, if I’m on the phone I’ll have my headphones in and when I leave Parliament in the evening I always phone my wife et cetera, but I left my headphones back in Blackpool this week.’
Mr Webb, a 6ft 2ins ex-rugby league player, said he fortunately came away with no physical injuries except a bruise on his arm from where he was restrained.
‘I think I got away very lucky compared to other individuals that this has happened to,’ he said.
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Urging people to ‘be vigilant’, especially while using their phones, he said: ‘If this can happen to someone my height, my size, I’m a big lad, it can happen to anyone.
‘Just be careful. Unfortunately we’ve got people who are out there targeting people with phones.
‘Just be vigilant and try and use headphones where possible.’
The MP praised the police response to his call, saying the officers ‘went above and beyond’ to help him.
‘Obviously as a member of Parliament I made the call because of stuff I can have on my phone,’ he said.
‘They were brilliant with the response. I’m just really appreciative of the police and what they did.
‘I can’t praise them enough really. I know they get a bad rep a lot of the time and the good work they do often goes unreported and unnoticed.
‘I couldn’t have asked for a better response.’
The Metropolitan Police said officers were called at 9.55pm on Monday following reports of a robbery on Lambeth Walk.
‘The victim was approached by a group of men who stole his phone from his hand. Inquiries remain ongoing,’ the force said.
Fellow MPs showed their support for Mr Webb in the comments underneath his post about the incident on X.
Labour MP Kate Osbourne said: ‘That’s awful. Sorry to hear this Chris x.’
Former leader of Liberal Democrats Tim Farron wrote: “That’s awful – I hope you are ok?”
Jacob Collier, MP for Burton and Uttoxeter, added: ‘So sorry to see this, Chris. Best wishes.’
Last month, a suspected phone snatcher was arrested seconds after a device was stolen after members of the public apprehended him.
In the same month, Metro went out with Met Police officers around London’s Oxford Street to find out how they stop phone snatchers.
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