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When 13-year-old Luca left his iPhone on the bus, his first thought wasn’t how to break the news to his parents - but how to get it back.

Rather than facing the music at home he channelled James Bond and hared off after the bus, enlisting a black cab and a police officer in what became a 45-minute chase across west London.

Luca Guerrini-Maraldi today described his mission to recover the £400 phone, which he dropped on the bus as he made his way home from Sussex House School in Cadogan Square, where fees are £5,600 a term.

When he got off at Chelsea Town Hall with his nanny he noticed his phone was missing. So without a backward glance Luca, who had recently broken his arm in a skiing accident, dumped his bags and ran after the number 19.

A taxi driver noticed the distressed schoolboy and offered him a free lift to track down the phone using the Find My iPhone app.

The pair followed the bus over Battersea Bridge and were trailing it back to the King’s Road when they hit gridlock. But a kindly PCSO, part of Chelsea’s neighbourhood police team, came to their aid.

She jumped in the cab and flagged down the bus in Sloane Street. As the officer boarded the bus a young woman was seen apparently taking the missing phone out of her bag and leaving it on the seat. No arrests have been made.

Luca, son of businessman Count Alessandro Guerrini-Maraldi and model and actress Catrina Skepper, said: “It was like being in a chase movie, we just kept going, the taxi driver was not going to give up. It’s the closest I’ve come to feeling like James Bond.”

Mrs Skepper, a friend of Prince Andrew’s, was famous for starring in the Cadbury’s Flake adverts of the Eighties. She said: “He was missing for more than 45 minutes and we were in an absolute state. I had visions of him being knocked over or taken by someone and I was about to call the police when he called. When I went to meet him I have never seen such a big grin on his face, he was so bowled over by how they had helped him.

“It was such an amazing turn of events with everyone rallying together showing a great example of community spirit.”