A violent robber who threatened to “slash” a passenger’s neck during a four-day crime spree on London’s rail network has been convicted following a British Transport Police investigation.
Teddy Kelt, 20, of Bower Close in Romford, pleaded guilty at Inner London Crown Court on 9 September to three counts of robbery and three counts of attempted robbery.
He also admitted two public order offences, two counts of possessing a knife or bladed article in public, and common assault. He will be sentenced at the same court on October 16 2025.
The court heard Kelt robbed three people and tried to rob three more between 4 and 7 December 2024, targeting passengers on the Tube and Elizabeth line and threatening several with knives.
On December 4, around 9.30pm, Kelt followed a 22-year-old man onto the platform at Mile End Underground station, told him he had a knife and threatened to stab him if he called for help. After taking the victim’s phone, he searched his pockets, slapped him, pushed him to the floor, and left the station.
The following day, he sat next to a 16-year-old boy on a Jubilee line train, showed him a machete and demanded his phone.
Two days later, he attempted to rob three people on a Northern line train towards Totteridge and Whetstone, threatening a 21-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy before dropping his knife and leaving the train.
On 7 December, he approached a man on the platform at Finchley Central and asked to borrow his phone. After following him onto the train and showing the handle of a knife in his waistband, Kelt threatened to kill him. The victim handed over his phone, laptop and iPad before being forced to get off the train at Tufnell Park, where Kelt robbed him again of headphones and a rucksack inside a newsagent.
Later that day, Kelt tried to rob a 17-year-old of their phone on an Elizabeth line train, threatening to stab them before other passengers intervened. He attempted to punch one of them.
Soon after, on another Elizabeth line train, he threatened to “slash” another man’s neck while trying to steal his phone before walking off.
In total, Kelt stole items worth nearly £4,000.
He is already serving a three-year, nine-month sentence for a separate string of robberies and attempted robberies at Ilford, Gidea Park, Goodmayes, Bexleyheath and Seven Kings between November 29 and December 9 2024, along with possessing Class C drugs and a corrosive substance.
Officers identified Kelt after being called to Gidea Park on December 9 following another robbery. CCTV footage led them to his address, where he was arrested in the garden wearing a stolen coat and several stolen phones were recovered.
Detective Sergeant Steven Ridpath-Mitchell said: “Kelt is an exceedingly violent and dangerous individual who spent four days mostly targeting teenagers, threatening them at knifepoint, for his own benefit. I hope that his guilty plea provides some sense of closure to the victims after he put them through such an awful ordeal.
“He's shown no remorse for his actions, either refusing to be interviewed or providing no comment or reply. The threats that he made against innocent commuters and the violence he used to rob them of their belongings is frankly sickening.
“There is absolutely no tolerance for robbery on the railway network, and we have regular patrols on trains and in stations of uniformed officers alongside our specially trained plain-clothed officers to detect and deter robbery around the clock.”
British Transport Police urged anyone who is the victim of or witness to a robbery to report it by speaking to an officer, texting 61016 or calling 0800 40 50 40. If a robbery has just happened, call 999 so officers can be deployed immediately.
