Phone thief laughs as he walks free

A phone thief who stole goods worth more than £10,000 to fund his drug habit laughed as he was spared jail. Louie Brown, 30, posed as a customer before slashing display mobile handsets loose with a pair of wire cutters at Vodafone and O2 stores across London. Brown was caught on CCTV carrying out the thefts and later identified by police, the Old Bailey heard. He admitted five counts of theft between 2 November 2018 and 3 January 2019. But…