Unemployed Algerian Abdulkader Merhabi (31) of Ilford Essex pleaded guilty to attempting to steal the 199 phone from Isabelle Briche at Paddington station on May 23.

The Court heard it was around 5.30 pm when two plain-clothed policemen noticed Merhabi walking from a platform at Paddington tube station through to the concourse at the mainline station eyeing women passengers. The under cover police followed him and saw him watching Isabelle Briche as her phone rang she spoke on the phone and replaced it in a holster on her waist.

Meharbi then crept behind her and tried to grab the phone with his left hand. He tried to remove the phone with his right hand. but she felt the movement and removed the phone from the holster and placed it on the table in front of her.

Merhabi walked away followed by the two policemen who stopped and arrested him. He was remanded on bail until June 21.

This is not going to be an easy ride but the rewards will be vast. A Group managing director can expect a package topping 500000 a year said Caudwell Group boss John Caudwell

The recruitment programme will be called the Caudwell Graduate High Flier Scheme and will seek graduates who were high achievers at university.

We as a Group are missing opportunities in UK and European markets because we simply cannot recruit exceptional people fast enough.

The first stage in the planned recruitment drive is Caudwells attendance at three key recruitment fairs: on June 20 June 22 and 23 in various locations throughout the country.

Judgment was given in Clerkenwell County Court on Wednesday May 2 and follows non-payment of two advertisements that appeared in Mobile News last June and August.

The advertisements were for a mobile comms exhibition Chestergate was trying to launch at the NEC in Birmingham but which never took place. They were placed by Chestergate executive Justin Bird.

Chestergate Exhibitions originally defended the summons issued against them on the grounds that the invoices raiased had not been sent to the correct division.

But the company failed to appear at the five-minute hearing in which District Judge Stary issued the Judgment against Chestergate.

Chestergate said its show had not been cancelled but merely postponed.

Yet there have been no ann-ouncements about a second date.

European Telecom chief executive David McKinney said: I can confirm that European Telecom is currently in discussions with Philips France.

However these discussions are yet to be concluded. When I can let you have further details I will.

European Telecom last month sold a majority 81 per cent stake in ET France to Cyber Telecom for 1.15 million. Both companies then contributed 193000 each to establish a new French logistics venture.

It uses their own telemetry device called blackBOX to send a signal via a computer to customers handsets – cutting down on the time and expense of using mobile phones land-lines or written material.

Director of sales and marketing Mike Langley said:

For example a pub chain could send a text message to everyone on their database informing them of a two-for-one drink offer and potentially a very good night out.

A travel agent may want to remind all its customers who have booked a holiday to make sure they remember to get currency and insurance – this is a quicker and cheaper way to do it – you press one button and the message goes to one person or a group of people – you are totally in control over who receives what information and when.

One of his responsibilities is to structure the company in the best possible way to support continued growth and expansion.

Hargrave says his priority is to build a commercial team that will take The PocketPhone Shop forward to surpass sales targets while also enhancing customer care.

Flextronics which now makes Ericsson handsets will acquire the assets of the Laval manufacturing plant. Around 830 Alcatel employees will be transferred to Flextronics. The company also announced that it will phase out GSM manufacturing at its plant in Illkirch France.

The moves are part of Alcatels strategy to consolidate its European GSM handset business.

Alcatel has denied reports it is considering a merger with French rivals Sagem following a move by the head of Alcatels battery division Gregoire Olivier to take the post of president at Sagem.

But this has been denied. Alcatel executive Paul Whitby said:

At a local level we are not aware of any merger talks between Alcatel and Sagem.

Alcatel launched a number of new products at CeBIT this year and says plans are advanced to increase its model line up with the launch of One Touch 501 and 511 models into the UK shortly.

The whole of the managements focus is directed to selling RSL COM as a going concern. Judging from the amount of interest thats been shown I put the danger of a company buying RSL COM to asset strip it as minimal. I am confident that the business will be sold as a going concern Mowbray told Mobile News.

If we are successful any and all contracts that exist between RSL COM and our dealer partners will be honoured. We could have done one of two things. Either locked ourselves away and kept our heads down. Or come out to be up-front about the situation.

We chose the latter course and have tried very hard to communicate as much as we possibly can to our business partners in a series of events.

Generally what we have had to say and the way weve gone about communicating the message has been well received. People have had a lot of tough questions. But thats not surprising when they are talking about the future of their businesses as much as we are talking about the future of our. Weve tried very hard to answer their concerns as to the eventual outcome. (see full story P38).

This is almost 15 years to the day since the service commenced.

The company has said the closure was due to the decrease in usage and the expense in maintaining and sourcing equipment to work with analogue.

There are 12000 subscribers still active (both contact and pre-pay) compared to 1.5m on digital. Active subscribers will be offered upgrades to GSM.

Mobile Telecom Group founders Martin Smith and Terry OConnor have left the company.

Mobile Telecom has around 100000 Vodafone customers and will now be integrated with Vodafone UK as part of its sales and distribution division.

Its customers will be migrated onto Vodafones.

Mobile Telecom is a well managed business that has operated successfully with high quality customers and well motivated staff for over 10 yearsduring which time Vodafone has had a productive and rewarding relationship with the company commented Vodafone managing director of sales and distribution at Vodafone UK David Jones.

Independent service provision has played a significant role in the development of mobile telephony in the UK. But inevitably this has meant that the identity and branding of the mobile network has often taken second place to that of the service provider in the eyes of the customer. said Jones.

Jones hinted that Vodafone UK would continue to look for opportunities to buy up other customer bases as it enables us to further develop the products and services that we can offer.

Mobile Telecom will continue to operate from its offices in Croydon Surrey alongside Vodafone UKs customer services operations also based in the town.