After visiting Leicester Square’s Christmas Market in London on Saturday with her family, an American woman has urged others to be vigilant after an upsetting ordeal
An American woman has urged others to stay alert after experiencing a frightening incident at Leicester Square’s Christmas Market. Experienced traveller Kelly turned to TikTok to caution others planning to visit the festive celebration after she was a victim of theft on Saturday, November 8.
Attending the event with her husband and children, she said their anticipation of what they thought would be a “great day” had soured by the evening. “We decided by 7pm we would leave the market and were walking towards Chinatown,” Kelly explained. “I keep my phone in my front pocket and, as my knee was hurting, I was walking a little bit slower and got shoulder-charged.”
Following a “yank to the neck”, Kelly said she locked eyes with a man who then “bolted” from the scene. Kelly continued: “I kept going and my husband and I held hands after that – so I didn’t need to put my hand in my pocket.” Nevertheless, several minutes afterwards, it quickly became clear that she had been robbed.
“I put my hand in my pocket to see if my mom had called me and my phone had been stolen,” Kelly said. “My son then pulled up [app] Find my iPhone and it was pinging in a spot of a casino in Chinatown. We ran the whole way there and [at the casino] I said to the lady, ‘My phone was just stolen and we need to go in and get it’.”
However, Kelly was disappointed when she was told she wasn’t allowed to enter. “My husband didn’t listen though and just went in, and the lady told me he’d get dragged out and that I should go and find a ‘red coat’. So I went around the corner where she said, and behold – the guy that bumped me was leaning against the wall.”
Kelly retreated to the casino entrance after the man “followed” her with his eyes, where she found her husband who had discovered the phone had been switched off. She quickly led him around the corner to the man she suspected of the theft. “I was 99.9 per cent sure he had it as I knew it was him who bumped me,” she said.
By this time, the man had been joined by another who had joined him from another casino in the vicinity, as Kelly added: “My husband said to them, ‘Did you guys take my wife’s phone?’ but they were like, ‘We are tourists, we have nothing’. But to me they were definitely looking for someone else to do it to.”
With the recent stabbings in London on her mind, Kelly conceded defeat out of fear and told her husband to leave the men alone. “I told him to forget it,” she admitted. “I cried. I was upset, because I was thinking what if I don’t get my photos back or they get my banking info.”
However, it soon became clear that her phone wasn’t the only thing that was missing.
“We got back and I took a shower and realised my necklace was gone – that was when I felt like I was jerked – that’s what it was,” Kelly said. “I can get a new phone, but that was a birthday present from my husband – we don’t have a ton of money so it was special to me.”
Kelly and her husband later went to a police station, where there were several other women reporting similar crimes. “The police said they couldn’t help but that we should file a report via a QR code,” she said.
However, there was to be no happy ending to the tale, as Kelly said: “We did that around midnight and by noon the next day I had received an email saying that the case was closed and they couldn’t do anything because… what can they do, I guess?”
Kelly concluded with a number of “takes” from her harrowing experience. “Take one – I’m never going to go to Leicester Square again,” she said. “Two – I think I am going to wear a cross-body bum bag and have it inside my coat.
“Three – they [police] know that it is a problem and happens to multiple people and on [AI tool] Copilot it says on average 37 cases like this are recorded per day in Leicester Square. And four – the casino – clearly they know and that’s why they didn’t let us in.”
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