HOME Secretary Jack Straw today said spiralling mobile phone crime in East Lancashire had helped prompt his new crime crackdown.

The Blackburn MP spoke out after a meeting with police and industry representatives agreed a new set of security measures.

Mr Straw said the meeting, the second such summit, had been "constructive." And he acknowledged that there was a problem in East Lancashire, where recent cases have involved a Burnley boy mugged for his phone at Turf Moor and a Ribble Valley schoolgirl bullied by text messages on her handset.

Manufacturers, operators and retailers are to put more crime prevention advice in manuals, on websites and in shops. Leaflets will also warn them how to avoid being mugged for their mobile.

The operators are to promote voluntary registration schemes for "pay as you go" phones to help them bar the use of stolen devices.

There are to be better police recording practices to help with tracing and recovery and technical moves to try and prevent the reprogramming of handsets and to make greater use of systems such as PIN numbers and voice registration to try and ensure that stolen phones become useless. There is also to be extra research into mobile phone theft and the characteristics of the robbers, with a view to further crime prevention measures.

Mr Straw said: "We do have a problem with mobile phone theft in East Lancashire, as elsewhere, but it is nowhere near as bad as it is in inner city areas of Manchester or London.

"We don't want to see it get as bad as that and these measures are aimed at preventing the problem getting worse. We need to nip it in the bud in areas like East Lancashire.

"We now have an action plan agreed by all parties to help us start to tackle the problem of mobile phone theft. More work still needs to be done but I believe these practical measures represent an excellent beginning.

"This is a serious effort to tackle the problem with a wide range of measures."