The UK's police minister has revealed her own children had their phones stolen and were never recovered.

Minister for Police and Crime Sarah Jones admitted members of her family had been victims of phone snatchers, but has no idea whether the offenders were caught or if anyone was convicted. 

The MP for Croydon appeared on Sky News this evening, where she was asked about the 'epidemic of everyday crime' gripping the capital, where a phone is stolen around every seven minutes. 

'It's not acceptable that people will get their phone stolen, and there isn't a response that they would expect,' she told presenter Sarah-Jane Mee.  

'I've suffered from that with my kids when they had their phones stolen. These things are enormously traumatic and very real.'

Ms Jones said the police's response had been 'great' but criticised the force for 'not keeping in touch'.  

'I don't know what the outcome was, they didn't get the phones back.

'I don't know if anybody ended up being convicted and it's that communication process that I think we need to work on in the police.'

The international trade in stolen phones is worth millions, with devices stolen in London worth more in countries such as China because it has none of the government restrictions put in place by the authorities.

The Mail revealed last month that British children as young as 14 are being recruited on social media to steal mobile phones before school for £400 each.

Gangs shipping stolen phones to Algeria, China and Hong Kong use Snapchat to target children to steal the devices - offering vast sums plus £100 bonuses to the most prolific phone snatchers.

The Met said that the number of recorded phone thefts in London went from 81,365 in 2024 to 71,391 last year.

Separate figures available on the Met's crime data website show that in 2023 there were 52,820 thefts from the person where a phone was taken, and 14,326 robberies; the figures for 2024 were 70,249 thefts and 11,125 robberies; and for 2025 61,292 thefts and 10,207 robberies.

In the space of the month to mid-February, the Met arrested 248 people over phone theft and recovered around 770 stolen handsets.

The force is using high-powered e-bikes and drones as part of its operations to stop phone theft.

But in a report for the London Policing Board, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned the force remains 'an outlier' for the number of personal robberies per thousand people, and theft from the person.

The force also solves one of the smallest proportion of these offences compared with others in England and Wales.

In the year to the end of December 2025, 6.9% of personal robbery cases ended with a suspect being identified and dealt with, while the rate was 0.9% for theft from the person.

In Westminster, between 69% and 72% of thefts from the person and personal robberies each week involve phones.