The ringleader of a gang of Spiderman burglars who made millions from a series of Hollywood-style mobile phone thefts on Carphone Warehouse Phones 4U and Vodafone shops was told to pay back just 58000 even though his gang caused 2 million of damage. Peter Clarkson 26 was part of a team who triggered an industry-wide security review after they spent two years stealing 5000 handsets worth up to 2 million. Around 17 Carphone Warehouse stores and eight Phones 4U shops were hit.

Peter Clarkson together with his father also Peter William Dove 20 and Joseph Reed-Mooney 23 all admitted conspiracy to burgle to reflect weekly raids carried out over an 18-month period.

Blackfriars Crown Court today heard that the younger Clarkson who was jailed for five years made 409125 from the crime spree. But investigators could only find 58252.84 in assets in his possession.

Judge Alan Hitching ordered the crook to pay back that sum within six months or face an extra 18 months behind bars.

Clarkson is planning to launch an appeal against his sentence.

Two of the gang were expert climbers who were able to scale sheer walls of office buildings before breaking in to snatch the goods.

They then shipped the phones out to customers in Africa and the Middle East through businessman Abdul Awada.

Awada 39 even claimed back VAT on the illegal overseas sales.

As the cash flooded in the elder Peter Clarkson 49 cheekily named his business Salvage 4U after the high-street phone retailer.

The gang were caught after an 18-month operation codenamed Zarzu by the Metropolitan Police.

Awada who owned Century Cellular a phone shop in Greenford west London admitted conspiracy to handle stolen goods and was jailed for just 18 months in June this year.

The elder Clarkson of 10 City View East Dulwich was given an 18-month jail sentence which was suspended for two years.

Reed-Mooney 23 of 8 Wayhill House Lough Road Camberwell was jailed for four years while Dove 20 of Axminster Crescent Welling was sentenced to three years in a Young Offenders Institute.

His assets included 8000 in cash found at the offices of Platinum Salvage in Camberwell. They also included a 8910 Vauxhall Vectra and a 14255 BMW.

Officers also discovered that the younger Clarkson had 7187 worth of equity in a property at Sheerness in Kent. He also had 20550 invested in another home in Welling.

Judge Hitching also commended detectives for their painstaking work in trying to track down the criminals assets.

The gang began their crime spree in November 2001. Using specialist hydraulic equipment and super-strength metal cutters they broke into more than 35 stores including the Carphone Warehouse Phones 4U and Vodafone.

Two of the gang Dove and Reed-Mooney were described as highly proficient climbers clambering on to the roofs of premises and dropping into the premises from above.

The thieves kept their targeted stores under surveillance for weeks at a time before making their move usually straight after delivery.

On one night alone they escaped with 150000 worth of phones packed in laundry bags piled in to the back of white vans.

They were then delivered to Awadas shop.

The crooked salesman who was caught with 62000 when police officers raided his store would sell the handsets to his contacts in the Middle East and Africa before claiming back the VAT.

The gang was forced to sell abroad because the handsets would have been barred from use in the UK as stolen items.

Dove and Reed-Mooney broke into the stores after the younger Clarkson organised the raids and then kept watch.

The men wore baseball caps and hoods to avoid detection by CCTV cameras and kept in contact using walkie-talkies.

The elder Clarkson supplied the gang with the laundry bags to take away their booty. Police first visited the Clarksons in June 2003 following a raid on Awadas shop.

But officers were unable to charge them at that stage so kept them under surveillance.

Detectives watched as the gang continued the spree and saw the elder Clarkson change the name of his business in Dartford Kent to Salvage 4U.

The gang last struck at The Carphone Warehouse in Bexleyheath Kent on September 20 last year but were not arrested until two months later.

Existing customers can also pay a surcharge for the service which is 20 per cent of their monthly bill.

The offer which is available on all Orange contracts means customers signing to an Orange Your Plan 120 tariff can make 120 minutes of free calls between 8pm and midnight each month. An existing customer on Your Plan 120 will pay 5 for the promotion.

Matt Chambers at The Phone Shop said: Its a step down by Orange. All it has done is restrict when you can make the calls. Its just a reduction on the deal really. I dont think it will have much of an impact.

Jez Harris founder of The Phone Dealer Forum said:

Orange has tried promoting off-peak calls before. It hasnt worked. I would rather have the old double minutes package that does sell.

The promotion will run through December.

The handset is free on Anytime 200 or above and 200 to buy on pre-pay. The Motorola E1000 is 300 on pre-pay.

Double minutes and double texts are on offer for all Perfect Fit price plans and there is free content subscriptions in news video weather football highlights and music for the first three months.

Following this introductory period there will be a monthly subscription fee for services (such as 5 a month for video access to Premiership football games).

Double minutes and double texts and free content for six months are on offer for 18-month Perfect Fit contracts.

Special tariff offers include 500 cross-network minutes and 100 texts for 40 a month plus unlimited content in all areas except Music for Life.

60 a month brings in 100 cross-network anytime minutes. The handset charge on this tariff will be a minimum of 50.

Video calling is 35p for Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls and 55p off-net. Video messages will cost 60p each.

As well as these redundancies the Orange pre-pay sales team is to be outsourced to India. In addition senior managers are to relocate to France and one of its call centres is to be closed down say sources.

All of the Just Talk enquiries are going to India. Its work to rule. There is no overtime being done. Its causing bedlam. It takes us 15 minutes to get through on the phone said one Orange dealer.

One call centre in the UK is being shut down. Theyll keep Darlington and Tyneside open he predicted.

France Telecom is nationalising Orange. The senior managers of Orange are all having to relocate to France he revealed.

Another dealer said: France Telecom is draining the life out of it. The corporate sales team at Orange has always been top-heavy and theyre cutting it by 20 per cent.

A statement from Orange said:

Orange already uses third-parties in the UK and Ireland to support our own call centres by handling some of our customer service calls.

This helps us cope with periods of high demand and it frees up our own call centre staff for training so we can continue to offer our customers the very best level of service.

Weve agreed that our partners will support us using their call centres in the UK and India and were starting trials with them. We can firmly say that the steps we are currently taking will not lead to any site closures or redundancies in Oranges own call centres.

A spokesman for Orange did not categorically deny the rumours but told Mobile News:

We are actually investing more in our corporate sales team because our customer base is growing not shrinking. There are no plans to close any call centres. There is no news on senior managers moving abroad. It is very much hearsay. We have made absolutely no announcements.

Talk of delays at Orange call centres have been rife for weeks. Mark Whitaker director of Findaphone in Accrington encountered staff problems when he tried to port 28 O2 handsets worth 1250 per month on to an existing Orange small business account.

It was so bizarre that you wouldnt believe it said Whitaker. We got two different stories from two different departments. Orange messed up and has done on quite a few occasions now. There is either a problem with training or a problem with attitude – or a combination of the two brought on by a lack of staff. They seem very stretched over there.

It sounds crazy but they just went around in circles. Eventually they sorted it out but it took three days and every phone call we made was very stressful indeed.

Whitaker was also frustrated when he attempted to quote a customer for 15 handsets on an Orange small business account.

The Orange service team he said refused to inform Whitaker whether the customer qualified for a small business contract until the customer has applied for one leaving Whitaker unable to provide an accurate quote for his client.

Continued on page 2

The frustration was enormous said Whitaker. It shouldnt be that way. We heard that Orange installed its Enable [credit-checking] system and thought it wouldnt need so many regular staff.

But dealers dont like it so arent using it so Oranges been left short-staffed.

Andrew Culverhouse of Potters Bar-based dealership Time2Talk said:

A lot of dealers suspect that there have been staff cuts at Orange because the call queues have got so much longer particularly over the past 10 days when we were queuing for up to 20 minutes.

It would make sense if they have made staff cuts because they installed this new Enable system to process registrations automatically.

Adrian Foot director of Welling-based dealership The Phone Shop commented:

The amount of time we have been put on hold by Orange credit checking and customer service has been very frustrating. It took at least two hours to get through on an Orange number port last week. I dont know whats going on with its call centres.

Ellis Dunning director of Talksense in Borehamwood said: Getting through to Orange in the last two weeks has been appalling.

We were put on hold for 45 minutes trying to upgrade a customer. The girl said that they were so busy. It obviously has staff shortages. Orange needs to be employing more staff instead of getting rid of them.

(see Stuart Henry interview page 20)

The letter offers free line rental and calls from 3p/minute with cross-net calling for 13.8p/minute. It was sent to companies by T-Mobile south-west business development manager Samantha Armstrong.

Her letter on official T-Mobile paper (see right) said: I would very much like to meet with you to understand your needs … many of our clients are benefitting from some of the following rates – 3p calls to fixed lines 4.7p calls to other T-Mobile users 2.3p calling colleagues on the same account 3p SMS to other T-Mobile users.

When asked if she had sent out more than one letter Armstrong told Mobile News: Im not allowed to talk to you. You need to talk to someone else at T-Mobile.

But a T-Mobile spokeswoman then explained that the letter was not authorised and that its content was inaccurate.

She said: an investigation will be made into where this commun-ication has originated and why it was sent out adding T-Mobile apologises for any confusion made to those companies that have received the letter and we will be contacting them shortly. T-Mobile is committed to the business market and is driving sales through its direct and indirect channels.

A T-Mobile dealer in the north-west who spoke on conditions of anonymity was furious about the Armstrong letter. He said:

T-Mobiles direct sales force is causing a lot of disharmony. Weve stuck with T-Mobile since 1977 through thick and thin. Ive had enough. Were putting our connections elsewhere.

The dealer said hed been chipping away at a 50-handset account for a farmers cooperative for months.

I had proposed a very attractive package. T-Mobiles direct sales force got wind of the deal and went in. They blew me out of the water and made me look an idiot at the same time. T-Mobiles direct sales force doesnt talk to business dealers. They go in with all guns blazing.

Paul Davis of Portsmouth based Aerial Telephones said:

The fact that offers like this are being made doesnt surprise me. Deutsche Telecom is telling T-Mobile to pull its finger out as far as the UK business market is concerned. Its difficult to grab a potential customers attention by letter even if you are offering rock-bottom prices.

However he went on to say that none of our customers have told me theyve been offered a fantastic deal.

Jason Chapman senior analyst at Gartnercalled the T-Mobiles offer extremely aggressive.

Theres little or no margin in it. Im surprised that T-Mobile is putting an offer like this on the table before they even begin negotiations.

Why does T-Mobile feel it has to come in with such a low-priced offering?

(Full story on page 18)

The stores aim to avoid queues with self-service facilities such as Vodafone E-top-up units. This forms part of the Vodafone UK retail expansion programme that will see the networks retail estate increase by a further 60000 sq ft this year

Orange has backtracked over remarks by chief executive Sanjiv Ahuja that suggested the networks 3G launch would be delayed because of overheating handsets.

Ahuja told the European Technology Roundtable Exhibition in Cannes:

If you want to generate heat you do not have to use cooking appliances. I say use your mobile 3G phone for that. You can fry eggs on them.

His remarks were immediately picked up by the BBC and broadcast to millions of Radio 2 listeners.

An Orange spokesperson said Ahujas comments were taken out of context claiming:

We are still on track to launch this year. What Sanjiv Ahuja said was that there are still issues with 3G phones which everyone is already aware of.

We are currently trying to get the customer experience right so that we run with good products. He was asked why Vodafone is launching 3G with 10 handsets when Orange is only launching with two and he responded by saying that we are going to launch this year with two good handsets that are robust and offer a good customer experience. He was making it clear that there are performance issues with competitor handsets and that we are not taking those handsets.

John Bernard LG Electronics marketing manager for mobile suggested that Orange was ready to move on its own 3G handsets this month.

The launch of Orange 3G is imminent. The phones are in. We have delivered all the handsets to Orange already. I dont know what he means by overheating – certainly our handsets dont get too hot.

A spokesman for rival network 3 suggested that Ahujas statements showed that Orange was looking to backtrack on its earlier promises about 3G.

3G handsets dont get hot he said. They do get hot in early development models. But we have over a million 3G customers. You would have thought wed have had complaints if there was any sign that they were overheating.

The thing is that Orange is obviously not ready for launch. We already know how much time it takes and how difficult it is to optimise the network. It has a huge challenge in the market anyway. How does it present these services to its customers? Does it move to our price model and cannibalise its existing customer base and revenues? That holds no advantage. But at the same time Orange wont be able to compete unless it does that. So it faces a huge challenge.

See Comment page 14

Neal who left Phones 4U nine months ago starts his new role at the end of this month. He will be responsible for the manufacturers channel and content marketing teams including the Samsung Fun Club brand.

At Phones 4U Neal had a wide range of responsibilities including marketing strategy and planning branding advertising and retail merchandising.

Before joining Phones 4U he worked at electrical and computing retailer Tempo Superstores and has also held marketing positions in music video and gaming at WH Smiths and Dixons Group.

We looked long and hard to find the right candidate and immediately realised Julians experience and outstanding achievements in the retail sector said Mark Mitchinson director of Samsung Mobile UK.

Said Neal: Its an exciting time to join Samsung. I look forward to being part of a successful team and building on the companys achievements to date.

MonsterMob provides content including ringtones Java games wallpapers videos and competition products to Vodafones live! web portal. The company supplies content to a total of 25 carriers across the world including Vodafone China Mobile and Verizon.

Ghillebaert replaces outgoing executive vice-president John Allwood who is moving to the Telegraph Group as executive director after four years at Orange.

Sanjiv Ahuja CEO of the Orange Group (see above) said Ghillebaert would be a more than capable replacement.

Under his leadership Mobistar has become one of the leading telecom businesses in Belgium with a strong presence in both the business and consumer markets he said.

Allwood 53 had high-level posts at News International Sky Television and Trinity Mirror Group before joining Orange. His first taste of telecoms followed 11 years at News International where he became finance director of all Rupert Murdochs Wapping-based newspapers before moving to Sky.

Between 1991 and 1992 he was finance director of Microtel – then a mobile telecoms start-up but now part of Orange.