Hapless thief stole an iPhone & filmed himself with it before being caught

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What you need to know

  • A thief stole an iPhone 7 and then filmed himself eating dinner with it.
  • The thief was caught and charged with little opportunity for defense.

A British teenager stole an iPhone 7 before using it to film himself having dinner, according to a report. The thief was later caught and charged before being given an 18-month suspended sentence.

The iPhone 7 belonged to another teenager, according to local reports, with the theft carried out in 2019. It was thought the thief had a knife at the time, although none was ever seen. Kairo Theophilus-Reid was 21 at the time he stole the device.

Prosecutor Alec Small earlier told the court Theophilus-Reid, then aged 19, and relative Charlie Graham, pulled up alongside two boys – just 15 and 16 – near the Highworth Co-op store in 2019.

The iPhone was stolen following an altercation, the thief was obviously peckish – so he went to get something to eat and for reasons unknown decided it was a good idea to film himself in the process.

Police later arrested the men at Reading services as they headed towards London. On the phone was a video shot the night before showing them at a Swindon restaurant just hours after the robbery.Theophilus-Reid, of Southwold Street, Hackney, admitted robbery.

Probably because you can't mount a defense when you've already done the prosecution's job for them.

James Watson QC noted during sentencing that the thief has changed his ways, giving him an 18-month suspended sentence and an order to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.

The iPhone 7 is getting a little long in the tooth nowadays, so can I suggest checking out the best iPhone deals we've come across? It's definitely better than stealing an iPhone and you'll get something a bit newer, too.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.