'World's unluckiest burglars' arrested after calling police by accident

Staffordshire police arrest two men on suspicion of burglary after one sits on phone and dials 999

As pocket dials go, it was a fairly costly one: two suspected burglars have been arrested after accidentally calling the police on themselves, officers have said.

Staffordshire police confirmed they arrested a 49-year-old and a 42-year-old after receiving a call from one of them, who appeared to have unwittingly sat on his phone.

Officers said they listened in to the call as the men carried out the burglary and could even hear their colleagues arrive to make the arrests.

“I think we have just arrested the world’s unluckiest burglars,” said Ch Insp John Owen.

Police said they arrested the two men in the Middleport area of Stoke-on-Trent on suspicion of burglary after receiving the “suspicious call” on Wednesday evening. They were still in custody on Thursday morning.

Poking fun at the unlucky pair, Owen included an image of Marv, the hapless burglar from the Home Alone film series, in a Twitter post on Wednesday evening.

“Whilst committing a burglary one of the bungling burglars has accidentally sat on his phone and dialled 999. We receive a call detailing all of their antics up to the point of hearing our patrols arrive to arrest them,” he wrote.

It is not the first time a set of robbers has managed to shop themselves with an injudiciously placed rear end. In 2013, a pair who were breaking into a car in Fresno, California, managed to call police on themselves.

The call handler on duty was able to track them down as Nathan Teklemariam and Carson Rinehart spent about half an hour discussing their plans. The pair were eventually arrested.

“This stuff just doesn’t happen – where a crime is captured from beginning to end,” Sgt Jaime Rios told Today. “The 911 call was still open at the time of the arrests, and the officer took the phone and ended the call himself.”

While 25-year-old Callum Tumilty managed not to call the police on himself when he broke into Cambois first school near Blyth, in Northumberland, to steal a load of laptops, his mother was less obliging.

Tumilty left his phone behind at the crime scene and was caught after his mother called it to try to track him down and asked the person who answered if Callum was there. Officers on the scene were quickly able to identify and track down the guilty party.

According to Newcastle’s Chronicle newspaper, Tumilty was later sentenced to 26 weeks in prison after pleading guilty to several charges.

• Stoke-on-Trent
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