iPods fuel rise in robberies

The iPod generation is helping to fuel a surge in street crime, Britain's top policeman claimed today.

Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the latest generation of mobile phones and iPods with their distinctive white leads were partly behind a shock 26 per cent jump in street robbery last month.

New figures published today show gun crime also leapt by 35 per cent in April compared with the same month last year and the number of violent offences increased by 13 per cent.

In a report to the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Commissioner said the Met had suffered "a bad few weeks" but that crime in the capital was still falling.

He said urgent measures had been put in place to tackle the increases and he believed they were now under control.

The rise in some offences last month was partly due to the early Easter break, which meant the traditionally quiet period fell in March rather than April.

Senior officers admitted the battle against street crime had also suffered because of the loss of a £12 million government grant which funded anti-robbery task forces in London.

Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin said there had been a rise in opportunistic robberies, mainly by schoolchildren. Many involved the "happy slapping" craze in which children use mobile phones to film assaults.

The leap in robbery is a serious setback to the government-driven campaign against street crime. It is driven mainly by gangs, some of whom are as young as 10. One group on BMX-type bikes robbed 100 people in two months outside a Tottenham Tube station, concentrating on the latest phones which can be sold on for £30-£40.

More than half of all street crime in London involves the theft of a mobile and it is believed more than 700,000 phones are stolen each year.

MPA member Cindy Butts said she was concerned about an unprecedented 35 per cent increase in gun crime in London. She hit out at Home Secretary Charles Clarke for failing to take gun crime in the black community seriously.