A PHONE shop owner chased a thief who stole a handset.

At around 4pm on Friday, March 9, a man walked into the Worcester Smart Tech store in St John's and asked to see a phone. While he was being shown the device, he snatched it and ran off.

Shop owner Grant Hinton, 28, said: “He ran out of the door and I chased him all the way to Sainsbury’s but he managed to get away. The police were great and were already at the shop when I returned. It is a wake-up call for us and how we show people phones when they come in.”

Police are understood to be analysing fingerprints taken from the packet the phone was in and are still looking for the man.