A thief who stole his solicitor’s mobile phone outside court under the noses of three detective has been jailed for two weeks.

Bobby Heath, from Strood, had just pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis and driving without insurance when he spoke to his barrister Charlotte Johnson.

She advised him on how to go about paying his fine and legal costs and then popped back into the courtroom at Bexleyheath Magistrates’ Court to fetch him the forms.

But the trainee barrister had left her £300 Samsung s5 on top of her case file on the windowsill.

In her ten minute absence, with three plain-clothed police officers just metres away, Heath, 26, swiped her phone and stashed it in his right pocket.

She returned and gave him the forms and only realised her phone was gone when Heath had left the building.

In a panic she then searched high and low before a trawl of CCTV from the court caught him stealing it last year.

He had denied stealing the smartphone but Heath, of Vicarage Road, refused to leave prison to attend his trial at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court but was found guilty in his absence.

Appearing via videolink from Bury Magistrates’ Court where she was representing another client, Ms Johnson told the court: “At 11am I was speaking to him about the fine that he’d been given.

"This theft was bold, brazen and a breach of trust. Ms Johnson was an innocent victim, merely going about her job" - Prosecutor Siobhan Caslin

“We were in the corridor outside the court we’d been in.

“I had to get the official form that explained how he could pay the fine so I went back in to the court room, after having left my case files and my mobile phone on the windowsill.”

She said she was gone 10 minutes and said: “I gave Mr Heath the fine form, I spoke to him about how he could pay it and various other matters about his sentence.”

But she realised the phone was missing almost immediately after Heath left the court building.

She added: “I went back in to the court room, I searched where I had been, I went to the advocate’s room where I searched, and then the toilets.

“I went to security and asked to see the CCTV.

“I spoke to the police officer who watched the CCTV with me and as he was watching he said ‘This was quite disappointing, there were three of my colleagues there.’”

She confessed while she hadn’t realised at the time she had left the phone by the windowsill, she knew she had it out of her bag because earlier in court.

That was because she had used it to connect her laptop to the internet.

The court was shown CCTV footage that showed Ms Johnson leaving files on the windowsill outside court, before Heath later appeared to pick something off the top of the files before putting it in his pocket.

Heath was arrested a few days later and told police in an interview: “I picked up paper or my own phone. I didn’t take a mobile phone.”

Prosecuting Siobhan Caslin said: “This theft was bold, brazen and a breach of trust.

“Ms Johnson was an innocent victim, merely going about her job.

“Mr Heath, a client she was representing, took advantage of her trusting nature.”

Finding Heath guilty, Deputy District Judge Mrs Claire Evans said: “I am satisfied and I am sure that the phoned is there and that he did appropriate it and secrete it on his person.

“I am satisfied that he did take it and I that he didn’t have consent to take it. I therefore find him guilty.”

Sentencing was adjourned until this week when Heath was jailed for the period.