It’s amazing the effect technology can have on crime. Keyless cars are a doddle to nick. Any old web-connected PC can net you millions with a little basic cyber know-how. Even the humble motor scooter can massively improve your hit rate as a phone snatcher.
As if intent on proving this very point, moped maverick Cavell Hutson and an un-named pillion-perching accomplice bagged a spectacular 21 mobile phones in a single hour from unsuspecting London pedestrians recently, criss-crossing five London boroughs with the cops in hot pursuit.
The key enabling role played by technology in the pair’s impressive, if thoroughly reprehensible, crime spree appears to have been the mesmeric effect exercised upon their users by so-called smart phones. So irredeemably entranced were these ‘users’ that the raucously urgent buzzing of a rapidly closing moped failed to rouse them from their digitally induced stupors.
Ultimately, however, it was technology that was Cavell’s undoing. Having finally been chased down by a Met ghetto bird – after countless cop cars had tried and failed – the pair abandoned their bike in an East London market and made off on foot. So heavily encumbered was Cavell, however, with his haul of 21 mobiles, that the fuzz had little trouble running him to ground.
As for his accomplice, police are appealing for information.
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