Thug Britain 2017
Moped hammer gang mug pedestrians in broad daylight just yards from BBC HQ on one of UK’s busiest streets
ONE of them menacingly raises a hammer in his gloved hand, while the other drives his moped straight at helpless pedestrians.
But this pair of marauding thieves were not on the lawless streets of some far-away city – they were bringing fear to the heart of London.
In fact, there were four thugs on two mopeds, circling for victims with bags and phones to steal outside the BBC’s headquarters, just off Oxford Street.
Each pillion passenger was armed – one with a hammer, the second with a crowbar – and waved their weapons to deter any would-be heroes from trying to tackle them.
At least one iPhone was stolen from a woman in her 40s when it was snatched out of her hand as she waited to cross the road.
Photographer Alex Lentati said he was almost knocked over by one of the mopeds. ‘At first I thought it was just bad driving, but then he mounted the pavement and started coming at me at fairly high speed,’ he told the Evening Standard. ‘I’d just come off the phone and was putting it in my pocket. As the bike got closer it rode at me on the pavement, then whizzed past on the inside next to the wall.
‘The audacity of it was that another one turned up and then they went round the block and came back again tearing down Great Portland Street.When they came round the second time one of them brandished the hammer.’
The BBC has sent memos to staff warning them to be vigilant for moped gangs and to keep their valuables out of sight.
Radio 4 reporter Andrew Bomford said he saw the thieves almost crash into a man as they targeted him on a pedestrian crossing. He said: ‘ They almost clipped him. He threw his hands up in the air and started running after them.
‘Someone on the second bike was waving a hammer in his hand. It seemed to me like it was a warning to not try to follow them or grab them.
‘It’s completely brazen, and it’s happening all the time, and it’s the same thing each time.’
Police are desperate to catch the thugs who use stolen mopeds to mug pedestrians and grab valuable goods from fashionable shops.
Investigators suspect the ‘ pavement pirates’ are controlled by Fagin- style masterminds who arrange for the mopeds to be stolen and sell on the spoils.
Offences involving mopeds have risen seven-fold in two years, from 1,053 in 2014 to 7,668 last year. In Islington alone, the worst- hit borough, more than 300 phones were being snatched a month at one point.
Some victims have been told by police that officers are reluctant to chase suspects on two wheels for fear of causing an accident. A teenager died after one incident three years ago.
The thieves’ helmets, masks and gloves beat CCTV cameras and make them difficult to identify.
However, Scotland Yard has launched a dedicated unit to iden- tify those responsible and this has led to a series of high-profile convictions.
Officers believe there is a hard-core of around 200 thugs responsible for the vast majority of the crimes.
Chief Superintendent Peter Ayling, head of policing in Westminster, said: ‘We have been made aware of this serious incident and it is a top priority to identify and arrest these reckless offenders.’
‘It’s happening all the time’