Are you bound to a signed mobile phone contract?

Is it true no matter what that you have to still pay for a mobile phone that you havent got as it was stolen & because you signed a 18 month contract. i purchased a mobile phone on contract about 2 yrs ago with 3. i had it for about 5 months & it got stolen, i reported it to the police & got a crime reference number. i rang 3, explained what had happend & gave them the crime reference number & told them to cancel the mobile phone. 3 months later i received letters from 3 saying that i owed a large amount of money & if i didnt pay it would be sent to a debt collecting company. i rang then to ask what the large amount of money they said i owed was for & they told me for calls & line rental upto the remainder of the contract. i told them i was not going to pay for something that got stolen & that had been cancelled. im still receiving threating letter saying they are going to take me to court if i dont pay the rest of the remainder of the contract. if mobile companys explained the contracts better then i dont think a lot of people would have contract phones. why should you pay for the remainder of the contract which is for the line rental. how can you pay for line rental when you havent even got the phone anymore so how can there be line rental. i think its stupid
Answer
Yes you are ....you will pay a penalty for leaving early!