Pregnant woman ‘falls on her stomach after dragged by phone thief’

A heavily pregnant influencer ‘fell flat’ on her stomach after she was allegedly attacked by a phone thief on an electric bike.

Former Miss England winner Laura Coleman was walking in London when she said she was targeted by the shameless yob, while she was nearly eight months pregnant.

The force of the biker allegedly snatching the phone from her hands made her fall over straight on to her ‘huge’ stomach, leaving her desperately rushing to hospital to check the baby still had a heartbeat.

Ms Coleman almost became one of the tens of thousands of victims of phone theft in the capital and the latest celeb to be targeted.

Some 61,331 devices were snatched last year – equivalent to 1,179 a week or 168 a day, according to analysis of the Met Police’s crime dashboard data. 

The model said in a video posted to her Instagram how the bike had come from behind her before mounting the pavement and grabbing the phone from her hand.

Although Ms Coleman managed to instinctively hold on to the phone, she was dragged off the curb and ‘fell flat on [her] 34-weeks-pregnant stomach’.

She said the feeling of the impact of the fall still ‘haunts’ her: ‘I can still feel the bounce of like a space hopper ball, it was like woom, and I could feel all the liquid inside… it’s like PTSD.’

Laura Coleman, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, fell on her stomach after she was allegedly attacked by a phone thief on an electric bike (pictured 2024)

The former Miss England model was forced to desperately rush to hospital to check the baby still had a heartbeat after the fall

‘The guy didn’t get my phone either. It bounced on the floor and he didn’t get it. 

‘I shouted at him whilst I was lying down in the middle of the road, “I’m eight months pregnant, you idiot”.’ 

After a crowd of horrified people gathered around her to help, she told how she had to hand her dog to a stranger so that she could rush to hospital covered in ‘cuts and bruises’.

‘It’s one thing stealing my phone, but they could have absolutely ruined my life,’ she said, in regards to the impact of the fall affecting her baby. 

‘It’s not about their phone being stolen, it’s about the complications around that.’

To add to her nightmare, Ms Coleman spoke of how she had to wait at the hospital before she was checked. 

‘They were so relaxed about it, they were just eating their lunch rather than helping me,’ she said.

‘They made me sit and wait for half an hour. I can’t believe that happened.

‘I wasn’t even in like the normal A&E, I went to the birth A&E. They kept me waiting, honestly the shock.’

When she was finally checked, they could thankfully still hear a heartbeat but kept her monitored for two hours.

Ms Coleman has made the police aware of the incident and the Met have been contacted for comment. 

The former Miss England comes from a family of beauty pageant winners, as her grandmother Irene won 12 titles and became Miss Army Pin-Up and Miss Lovely Legs in the 1940s. 

While her mother, Dena, won 20 titles in her 20s, including Miss East Anglia and was a finalist in the Miss United Kingdom.

Ms Coleman won the title of Miss Leicestershire in 2005 while studying for a degree in business law and marketing at De Montfort University in Leicester.

She went on to win Miss England on her second attempt in 2008, just a day after her graduation, before going on to represent England in Miss World.

Tens of thousands of mobile phones were stolen in London last year – equivalent to one taken every nine minutes, it was reported last month.  

More than 224,000 phones have been reported stolen in London over the past four years, but the total will likely be higher given not all phone thefts are reported.

After a crowd of horrified people gathered around her to help, she told how she had to hand her dog to a stranger so that she could rush to hospital covered in ‘cuts and bruises’

The Met launched a huge fightback against the crime – and last year marked the first fall in phone thefts since it launched its dashboard data in February 2022. 

Ms Coleman is the latest celeb in a rosta of high profile victims of crime in London.

It was revealed earlier this month that the Absolutely Fabulous star Dame Joanna Lumley was targeted by motorbike bandits who tried to steal her car as a spate of break-ins gripped her neighbourhood.

The 79-year-old was rudely awakened in her home in Stockwell, south London, and came out of her £2.5million townhouse wearing a dressing gown to see a group of men revving motorbikes while trying to break into her car.

And last week, a Love Island star’s £1,000 designer handbag was stolen off her shoulder during a day out in London, she suspects.

Lauren Wood, 27, was left in ‘sheer panic’ after her luxury Louis Vuitton bag disappeared from under her nose.