Annabel Croft has said she was “traumatised” after a mugger snatched her phone out of her hand on a London street. The ex-tennis player, who came fourth in the last series of Strictly Come Dancing, 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 incident happened. She 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. “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. Former tennis player Annabel Croft (Jordan Pettitt/PA) “And then incredibly, he dropped the phone and I went running after him.
” She added: “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.” Croft said she now 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.
