The police figures, exclusively revealed to the Evening Telegraph, show 11,500 mobiles have been stolen from Northampton shire residents in the past three years.

They explain the numbers of thefts have been decreasing steadily each year but there have still been 4,219 mobile phone thefts in the north of the county, which includes Kettering, Wellingborough, Corby and Rushden, since 2006.

The number of mobile phone thefts in north Northampton shire stood at 1,482 for the period 2006 to 2007. In the following year they dropped to 1,446 and the recent annual figure was 1,291.