Attempted theft from SkinJase tattoo studio in Smallthorne

Jason Powner who is well known in Stoke on Trent for his charitable work, was today targeted in an attempted theft of a mobile phone. The attempted theft took place at the SkinJase tattoo studio in Smallthorne at around 6pm.

A man entered the shop around 6pm, with a tattoo design on paper, but something didn’t seem right to Jason, who was busy with a customer at the time. The man picked up a mobile phone and attempted to get away.

Luckily Jason spotted what had occurred and waited for the thief to try to make his escape, and mindful of a customer who was in the shop, and who was unaware of what had happened. Jason waited before approaching him, as he tried to escape a struggle occurred and the thief then ran out of the shop leaving the phone behind, it is believed the thief sustained a black eye following this incident.

There has been a number of similar incidents reported in the past few weeks with people mostly targeting hairdressers or beauty shops.

Some of the incident can be seen on the following CCTV footage. Do you recognize the man in the distinctive shirt ? The thief is described as foreign and possibly Spanish.