Strictly star Annabel Croft has described feeling “traumatised” after a mugger on an e-bike snatched her phone out of her hand on a London street. The ex-tennis player said she was waiting for a taxi on a quiet street in London and was checking her phone to see where her driver was when the theft occurred.
Annabel, who came fourth in the last series of Strictly Come Dancing, told ITV’s This Morning : “I was aware of this bike coming towards me from a distance. And I just thought it was a young lad on a bike… I realised it was a balaclava (he was wearing) and I thought, oh, he’s taking the corner a bit tight.”
She continued: “The next thing I knew, he was literally at me and one-handedly, very skilfully, snatched the phone right out of my hand as I was looking at the app. I screamed, I was totally shocked by it and he rode off with my phone. I was screaming all sorts of expletives, I couldn’t even tell you what came out of my mouth. It’s all a bit of a blur.”
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Annabel said that incredibly, the mugger dropped her phone while she chased him: “My instinct, quite wrongly, was to chase after him, because I was thinking, what on earth am I going to do without my phone, when all of our lives seem to be on our phone. He looked back, and I think he was deciding whether to come back and try and get it and then I was so lucky that there was a very nice gentleman across the street that could see how distressed I was and he helped me.”
The former tennis champ wants to offer a warning to others about the risks of having a phone snatched. She said: “It totally traumatised me. I did go into a little bit of shock afterwards, with the shakes that came over me. It happened all so quickly, it’s a bit of a blur but I just don’t want anybody who’s standing on their own looking at their phones having that kind of experience, because I realise it is quite common.”
Annabel said she never considered herself a target, but the phone disappeared from her hands ‘in seconds’. She continued: “I’m really worried about my kids. I’m worried about my friends, family, anybody who might be on a street corner, because it just feels like it’s not very safe any more. I was so shocked and it is very terrifying. So, you know, please just be aware of if you’re on a street corner… I would hate anybody to have that same experience because it is quite terrifying.”
Former British number one tennis player Annabel Croft was at 15 was the youngest Briton to compete in the Wimbledon Championships for almost a century. She was also junior champion at the tournament in 1984 at the age of 18.
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