A man caught at a concert with 22 mobile phones in his tights has been jailed for nine months.

Romanian Ionut Tudorache, 25, had only been in the UK for a few days when he was stopped by security staff at the Bournemouth International Centre on November 25 last year with a haul of stolen phones.

Prosecuting at Bournemouth Crown Court last Thursday, Stuart Ellacott said staff at the Kasabian concert were on the lookout for thieves after similar incidents at the pop band’s previous shows.

“The defendant drew the attention of the security guards by not making eye contact,” he said.

“He was stopped and searched, and the mobile phones were found in a pair of tights he was wearing underneath his trousers.”

In mitigation, Nicholas Robinson said his client “was not the pickpocket” who had actually stolen the phones.

“He met two Romanian gentlemen, he had been in London for three or four days and he didn’t know anyone,” he said.

“He came down to Bournemouth with them.

“He was told to wear the tights because it would be cold on the south coast.”

Mr Robinson said Tudorache, a “good man” and qualified electromechanical engineer whose behaviour was out of character, only realised what was going on when the men began putting the stolen phones in his trousers.

“He came here hoping for a better life,” he said.

Tudorache, of no fixed abode, admitted 22 counts of theft of a mobile phone.

Jailing him, Judge John Harrow said: “You had been in this country a matter of days before you broke the law. You must have known that you were being dishonest.”