Mobiles are now most commonly pick-pocketed items
Mobile phones overtake wallets and purses as the items most commonly stolen in personal thefts for the first time, as average cost of the crime tops £250
Mobile telephones are now the item most commonly stolen by pickpockets Photo: ALAMY
By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
4:24PM GMT 27 Nov 2014
Mobile phones have become the item most commonly targeted by pick-pockets and other thieves, overtaking wallets and purses for the first time.
The average cost of a theft from the person has also topped £250 as people carry increasingly valuable items around with them such as smartphones, tablets computers and other electronic devices.
Phones were taken in 51 per cent of "thefts from the person" in 2013-14, according to new crime data from the Office for National Statistics, compared with just 39 per cent in the previous 12 months.
Purses or wallets were stolen in 30 per cent of incidents and cash in 34 per cent, although they remained the most commonly targeted items in household burglaries, according to the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW).
The average cost of a theft from the person was £251, up from £223 in 2012-13.
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Nearly a third of victims (32 per cent) lost goods and cash totalling between £200 and £499; and items worth between £500 and £999 were stolen in 14 per cent of cases.
In a small minority of thefts from the person - two per cent - the victim lost goods worth more than £1,000.
There were an estimated 567,000 thefts from the person in the most recent 12 months, according to the CSEW.
An ONS spokesman said: "The survey shows that cash and wallets/purses have consistently been targets for thieves and such items continue to be stolen in a high proportion of offences.
"The 2013/14 CSEW shows that these were the most commonly stolen items in incidents of burglary in a dwelling and robbery, stolen in just under half of all incidents.
"However, as more people carry valuable electronic gadgets, these too have become desirable targets.
"For example, the latest data from the CSEW indicate that about half of theft from the person incidents involved the theft of a mobile phone, where previously cash and wallets/purses were most commonly stolen in this type of crime."
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