Strictly's Michelle Tsiakkas shares terrifying mugging ordeal on Good Morning Britain - and is stunned when Kate Garraway reveals her own phone was snatched with scathing swipe at police

Daily Mail​

20 hours ago

Strictly star Michelle Tsiakkas has opened up about her terrifying mugging ordeal in London - and was left stunned when Kate Garraway revealed her own phone was snatched.
The professional ballroom dancer appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss the growing phone-swiping epidemic.
Michelle had been walking to the dentist in Covent Garden one morning when her mobile was promptly taken out of her hands, despite the 'quiet streets'.
The 29-year-old told hosts Kate and Ed Balls: 'I was on my way to the dentist. It was a new dentist, I hadn't been there before. It was early morning - around 9am.
'I took my phone out and, within about five to ten seconds of me taking it out, it was grabbed - gone.'
A stunned Kate gasped: 'Wow,' before co-host Ed queried: 'Were you even thinking about phone safety?'
'I'm generally quite aware, I would say, as a person,' Michelle said. 'I look around me - but you can't predict these things.
'And this is why I would advise everyone to be super careful because even when you think you're well aware of your surroundings - these criminals are professionals.
'They come out of nowhere and your phone is gone.'
The segment also featured a police officer who explained the protocol to follow in the event of having a phone stolen.
But mother-of-two Kate was not impressed, and told of her own phone theft ordeal where she felt she had not received adequate police support.
'That has not been my experience,' she said. 'Is there something different to do if something is swiped off you physically?'
The 58-year-old revealed she had had several phones stolen while living in London, and none of the thefts had been resolved.
'I've had phones stolen in London in a bag. I've tried to report it and they've said, "Do you want the insurance code number?"
'There was no sense that the police were going to come, look at the area and see where it might be.'
In a separate video shared online, Michelle discussed the seemingly safe street in which she had her phone swiped.
'I was the only person around, so maybe I was an easy target,' she said. 'A man comes on a bike behind me, sweeps past me and grabs my phone.
'So he's grabbed my phone, he's on an electric bike, and my heart just sank. I tried to, I think, reach for it and that made me fall on my knees on the floor and graze my knee.'
It comes as GMB viewers were left 'wincing' as Kate made a 'disrespectful and insensitive' joke at the worst possible time.
A recent episode of the ITV breakfast news show saw the presenter with co-host Adil Ray, 51, report a particularly sad story to viewers.
It was about British grandmother Yvonne Ford, 59, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, who sadly died from rabies.
Kate explained: 'Did you see this extraordinary story about a woman, she was scratched very slightly by a stray dog whilst on holiday in February, that long ago, in Morocco.
'It wasn't even a particularly bad one at the time. It didn't seem to be infected. Then two weeks ago, she started to feel very unwell, has now passed away.'
Before making an ill-timed quip, she added: 'It's made people very conscious because rabies is something we don't think about very much. It is astonishing.'
It came as she mentioned TV doctor Hilary Jones, 72, who often appears on the show for health and wellbeing segments.
She said: 'I mean, what the doctors say, if I can do my Dr Hilary at the moment for a bit, is make sure you get an inoculation.
'But also, if you have any kind of scratch from any kind of wild animal or animal abroad, get treatments right away, because then it can be stopped.'
Rabies - which is passed on through injuries such as bites and scratches from an infected animal - is nearly always fatal.