There has been another of the regular police warnings about thieves who target customers in coffee shops.

The area involved this time is Hertfordshire, where there has been a spate of thefts of mobile phones, wallets and purses, almost all from victims sitting at tables having coffee.  Police suggest that customers in coffee shops tend to casually leave items on tables, and that it is comparatively easy for a thief to distract their attention and steal an item.

In several coffee shops, thieves have attempted to distract consumers by offering to sell them newspapers, or pretending to hand out charity ‘fliers’ – in a Costa store in Harpenden, a man declined such an offer from a person who then grabbed the man’s phone and ran from the