There have been a number of thefts around the East Dulwich Grove, Melbourne Grove part of East Dulwich in the past few weeks. Recently a man on a bike (i'd say aged between about 18 - 25) wearing a balaclava or ski mask with his hood up, mounted the pavement behind me and grabbed my phone out of my hand. I instinctively screamed really loudly and i'm not sure if that shocked him but he dropped the phone and cycled off so I managed to retrieve it. As I was walking back home, shaken up, a passerby on the street had seen what happened and asked if I was OK. He mentioned that he had seen this person before who'd taken someone else's phone on the same road. I did report it to the police but have had no updates. A couple of weeks later, I was not at home but my partner was and said he was looking out of the window and saw a man in a balaclava on a bike grab a phone from a lady's hand and cycle off. My partner called the police for the lady and they came to take a statement (that didn't happen in my case as he didn't actually manage to steal my phone). That is three instances of phone theft during the day with a man on a bike in a balaclava in the past few weeks. Everyone should be wary of having their phone out while walking as this doesn't seem to be abating.
