OWNERS of the latest street fashion accessory were warned by police yesterday that the conspicuous white headphones of the iPod have become a beacon to thieves.

Stores can barely keep up with demand for the portable music player which allow fans to download their own choice of more than 10,000 songs. But the distinctive “earbud” white headphones are a giveaway to criminals that a highly desirable iPod, costing up to £400, is concealed about the street-walking music lover. iPod-users are exchanging on websites grim tales of street muggings, with the publicspirited devising a headphone colour code to denote the safety of a particular area.

But Apple, which has sold two million of the devices, refused to recolour its headphones, saying its customers would prefer to be robbed than be seen wearing something less trendy.

Roland Baskerville, 22, from Birmingham is a typical iPod victim. The language student was mugged for his new £274 20GB device. He said: “I was walking down the road near to my home when a man who was walking the other way pointed at my headphones.”

He took one headphone out to hear the man asking if he was wearing an iPod. Mr Baskerville said: “As soon as I told him yes, he pulled a knife out and started waving it at me, saying: ‘Well hand it over, then.’ I gave it to him and he ran off. He must have known I was wearing an iPod because of the white headphones.”

Police recommend that iPod owners, who include David Beckham, use less stylish colour headphones to disguise that they are carrying a valuable piece of technology.

A spokesman for West Midlands Police Safer Streets anti-robbery initiative said: “People need to use common sense, have their iPods security marked and keep them inside their jackets. They shouldn’t carry them around in their hands, because a lot of robberies like these are snatches.”

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