Shoplifting

There is no way on this earth would I risk any member of my family challenging a shop lifter. After all, what might happen to them. Nothing in my experience. It's petty crime to the court! Additionally, Boots is owned by a multi national company in America under the name of Wallgreen. Likely they use every tax loophole and cheap labour available to them. Become a victim for the multi fat cats of the world if you want but all I can say is the company can afford it.

I have tackled a thief, I can't do nothing when I see any kind of crime being committed. I don't think of my own personal safety I act on instinct, I couldn't live with myself if I saw a theft or anything for that matter and did nothing. I have been told by the police not to intervene, incase said person has a weapon, but I still do. I know it sounds awful, but I can't stand to see people just standing around letting it happen and do nothing. I want to shake them up. They'd expect someone to intervene if they were getting attacked, wouldn't they.?? To me it's exactly the same when I see any criminal activity in progress. I once handed myself in to the police because I hurt a burglar. I stabbed him hard with a copper pipe and he bent double before running away. I was told it was a crime to hurt an intruder so I thought I'd be in trouble. Luckily this wasn't the case, and only served as humour to the police who interviewed me. But I was told he could've been carrying a weapon, I was too angry to care, and I would do it again. These people are rarely caught anyway, so I have to do something. I hate injustices, I always have. I see people who can help, yet don't, as totally gormless.

I means likes

Lilikemaho

My God you seem like a right busy body

Precisely the reason I left Gransdnet and why I dont comment much. why cant people just be kind or be quiet. No one like a troll.

I see this all the timewhere I live. I have seen it in Boots twice. Lots of times in the pound shop. Loads in big drugs stores like savers and superdrug . Clothes shops are also a target. They just fill a bag and walk out, quite often there are two of them. I have seen them pretend to use self-service then just fill the bag from the basket and leave. A lot of shops are now blocking off exit doors and just having the one entry / exit door. Two clothes’ shops closed in our town because the problem was so bad.
I always tell a member of staff but I never ever get involved or say anything to the shoplifter it is not my job. They are very blatant police don’t even come anymore and shops only have the power to tell them to leave the stuff and get out. They then walk around down selling it. The shops then claims off their insurance, put the prices up and we pay for it.

My God you seem like a right busy body

You did the right thing. You reported it to the staff. It's their job to deal with it.

Don't confront a shoplifter. My DH was a retail manager for most of his working life. He used to have to detain shoplifters and, when he was younger, he used to sprint after them and catch them if they ran for it. One of the men he caught punched him in the face, and he ended up with a massive black eye. His Area Manager thought it was funny but I didn't. It could easily have been a knife instead of a punch. He also had to ban a group of teenage girls from the shop as they were persistant thieves, and for several nights they waited for him in the underground car park. One of them was armed with a baseball bat. I was frightened for him but luckily there was a security man in the mall, and he would accompany my DH to the car after the first incident. There was another group of shoplifters, young men this time, who found out where his car was parked. In revenge for being banned, they jumped on the car's bonnet and stove it in.

The point I'm making is that you don't know what you're dealing with. Thieves can turn nasty and you don't want to be on the receiving end. Shops don't want you to get involved and get hurt. That's worse for them than the shoplifting. All you can do is report it.

At the shops where my DH worked, the policy was always that the staff had to witness the theft themselves, and couldn't rely just on customer information in case they were mistaken. If a customer reported that someone was stealing, my DH or a shop assistant, or both, would covertly watch the suspect until they caught them in the act. If the thief didn't steal anything else or it was reported after they left the shop, they couldn't do anything.

That was the policy in theory,anyway. I think that, on a few occasions, my DH might have taken a chance and challenged the thief if there were several customers who had witnessed the theft. Whatever the shop staff decided to do, you have done all that you could by reporting it.

I think you did what you could you don’t say how old your granddaughter is but if she was young you have to think of her too

I did once tackle a man out of sheer anger it wasn’t in a shop My son played football for a local team and his shirt had his name on the back as I was walking up the street a young stocky man came along wearing the teams shirt I turned round out of curiosity as he went by so I could tell my son I saw so and so from you team in the street Much to my horror the shirt had my sons name on the back I was so incensed I went up to him and said you have my sons shirt on may I have it back please I was told to F off I don’t know what came over me but I was so annoyed I carried on walking beside him saying please give me that shirt I kept getting told to F off I said I m not going anywhere till you give it me and carried on walking beside him getting mouthfuls of obscenities All of a sudden he pulled it off and threw it at me and carried on bare chested I said thank you it was all quite bizarre
Later when I told my son he was really cross and told me off it’s only a shirt and of course he was right but I was so angry that someone had been in garden and taken it off the line that I acted without too much thought to the ‘what ifs’

Shop lifters play Russian roulette they will try their luck as often as they can, then one day they try their luck once too often and get caught. Even if at times they think they have got away with it they may not have done. The Beauty of CCTV is the crime can be replayed over and over again to help identify the suspects and can be used as evidence at a later date. The police have officers who’s view CCTV regarding retail crime.. The police know that a lot of shop lifting is done by drug addicts to fund their daily needs to buy drugs. They steal to order knowing they can off-load their I’ll gotten goods for cash.
The police know most of the shoplifters in their area.

I would report it to staff,but wouldn't get involved.It must have been a shock,and these things can happen so quickly.The lady on the till wouldn't have been able to do anything if she was by herself,he knew he would get away with it.

Some years ago my husband and I were in a small pharmacy. We noticed a young man filling his pockets with perfumes. Husbsnd is a retired police office so he grabbed the guy. The guy began kicking stuff off the shelves and fighting with my husband. The shop owner didn't move to help. He said"just let him go". So, husband let go of him and he ran out of the shop shouting threats. He got away with a pocket full of loot. My husband was disillusioned that the shop owner clearly didn't want to help or call the police. He said he would never intervene again.

curlz
Fortunately the days are gone when there would be a long queue outside the post office on pension day. They were targetted as they left as they were known to have over £100 in cash.

Seen that sort of thing many times over the years, I’ve reported it to managers of shops, some have just said yeh regular and carried on working! And others have checked their cctv

I was in a supermarket a few years ago and saw 2 young men loading their trolley with as many bottles of wine and spirits as they could. Over the loudspeaker was ‘will all male operatives please come to the front door’. Suddenly there were about 15-20 men at the door, and the 2 young men abandoned their trolley and ran off. The Manager later told me that they would rather retrieve all the potentially stolen stock than apprehend the thieves - it’s safer and there is less paperwork.

However, in a small shop with few assistants this can’t happen, and there should be a ‘panic button’.

There’s a TV programme where they follow the work of store security in a Shopping Mall. They apprehend shop lifters regularly but say that the police won’t come out or prosecute for goods under a certain amount - £200 I think.
All they can do is take the person’s photo and ban them from the shopping centre for a year.

Technically you cannot challenge a potential thief until they actually exit the premises. While they are in the store they still have the opportunity to pay for the goods or to replace them on the shelf. They can always claim that they had "forgotten" that they put the items in their bag/pocket etc or that they meant to pay for them. Its not until they exit that one can charge them with the deliberate intention of depriving the owner of the goods as defined by the Theft Act.

This is why most shoplifters get off with it because small stores (and often large ones) dont have sufficient staff to provide the backup to detain potential thieves.

Also witnesses do not want to "become involved" and wisely keep quiet because they are wary of their own safety.

I would probably have shouted "Stop, thief!" very loudly as he got to the door.

I work in a store with a post office sadly shoplifting is rife now with staff numbers being down as we are often single manned , I have had money snatched out of my hand as I counted someone’s pension out at the post office counter .

You handled it just right, in my opinion. I don't see what else you could have done.
It's a sad reflection of life now that the police just aren't interested in theft unless it's massive.

I'm with Muffinthemoo on this one. Property is not worth the risk of you or anyone else getting hurt.
It's a sad fact of life that so much theft goes on now.

SnoozedaFlooze, it wasn't just one bottle of aftershave. The OP specifically states that he dropped bottle after bottle of aftershave into a plastic bag and walked out.

I would report him but definitely not approach, he may have had a knife, needle, anything!

If it's under £50 they don't do anything anymore. Hence the 1 bottle of aftershave

In answer to the OP - I’m sure you did the right thing for you in the circumstances. Our local shops use a telephone ‘cascade’ system to warn each other about shoplifters in the area and will refuse admittance to people they’ve been warned about.

My own inclination is to challenge the person, loudly, and I have done so on many occasions, but then I have had quite extensive training in managing difficult and aggressive behaviours. A few weeks back I saw a local thug begin to assault a young man and I became a cross between a school teacher and an angry granny as I lowered my voice, held up my hand in the universal ‘stop’ sign and called at him to ‘stop at once’, whilst directing the young man to run to safety. Fortunately being told off by me (I have some history with him) was enough to interrupt the attack and when I could see that he was thinking of continuing anyway I stood my ground and told him to go.

I think it probably sounds more dangerous than it was because there was a shop nearby that I could have run into - and I have helped a number of this man’s friends in the past, so I knew he had some respect for me. In fact later in the day, after I’d spoken to the police, the man called me (my number is public) and tried to convince me that he hadn’t been assaulting the other chap, but I gave him short shrift and there has been no comeback.

I think it's very hard to react in time for anything to be done. I was in B&Q several years ago and the people in front of me in the checkout queue had a large, expensive tin of paint in their trolley, casually draped in a cardigan and with a cute toddler standing in front of it. They breezed out unchallenged by me or anyone else.