Samsung mobile took photo of thief when he used wrong PIN and emailed it to the owner

Claire Rose, 28, from Hull, activated the app when she realised her £450 Samsung smartphone was missing, and it emailed her the photo, which looks like the pickpocket she believes took it.

Police are looking for a phone thief who was caught out by an app which automatically took a picture of him when he typed in the wrong PIN code and emailed it to the owner.

Claire Rose, 28, from Hull, activated the app when she realised her £450 Samsung smartphone was missing, and it emailed her the photo which she passed on to police.

The man in the picture looks similar to the man she believes stole her phone when she was walking up the street.

She claims that it was in the pocket of her coat, which was hanging on her bag, but a man who was walking behind her – the one in the photo – told her it had fallen on the floor. 

The Lookout app also told her where the phone was, which was near her home, and she passed the information on to police.

Miss Rose said: ‘Then this man came up to me and said I’d dropped the coat so I turned around to pick it up and noticed my phone had been taken from the coat pocket – but when I looked up he had gone.’

Miss Rose added: ‘I don’t know exactly what happened – I think he must have pulled the coat off, it can’t have just fallen off.

Samsung mobile took photo of thief when he used wrong PIN and emailed it to the owner