Category Archives: Shoplifting

According to the Manchester Evening News, a prolific thief who threatened a supermarket security guard with a hypodermic needle has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Lee Thompson was arrested by police who saw him driving a stolen car in Hyde.

Stoke On Trent Live reports that a serial shoplifter has been jailed after stealing thousands of pounds worth of goods from four of the UK’s biggest retailers.

Jacqueline Deaville’s crime spree included stealing nearly £3,000-worth of goods from Boots, Longton, in just one day – a third of the store’s weekly takings.

The Lancashire Telegraph reports that a man’s ‘intense personal crisis’ led him to embark on a 10-day shoplifting spree, which netted him goods worth £500.

Dean Roberth Smethhurst got into financial difficulties, fell in with the wrong crowd and started to use heroin after being unable to obtain a pedlar’s licence.

The Ipswich Star reports that thieves stealing from shops in Ipswich are causing a ‘constant’ problem for town centre police and security teams.

Town centre rangers, who return up to £5,000 of stolen goods to stores each month, admit that this “probably doesn’t even touch the surface” of the amount of thieving that occurs.

The Daily Echo reports that traders in Poole are forming new groups to take on thieves, as the town finds itself in the grip of a shoplifting epidemic.

Business owners say thieves are treating their offending as a “nine-to-five job” and, in the new year, a series of organisations uniting police, independent businesses and major retailers will launch in Dorset in a bid to tackle crime.

Metro reports that a branch of Asda in Leek, Staffordshire, has banned three years of pupils from a local secondary school from the store, after a spate of shoplifting by a small number of its students.

Pupils in years 9, 10 and 11 at Leek High School will be affected by the ban.