Category Archives: Shoplifting

According to the Bristol Post, twin sisters sold stolen goods worth £300,000 on eBay, in order to fund drug addicts.

Between 2011 and 2016, Lillian Bowers and Helen Thomas turned from hobby eBay traders to selling thousands of stolen items to the tune of some £300,000, after Bowers’ son Dean started to get his mum to sell stolen items to fund his drug addiction.

The Lurgan Mail reports that two women travelled from Dublin to Northern Ireland for a shoplifting spree, netting themselves almost £2,000-worth of goods in one day.

Margaret O’Reilly and Margaret Maughan stole electrical goods, cosmetics, homeware and clothing from across Lurgan and Newry.

As reported in the News & Star, a thief took a knife into a Carlisle supermarket to aid his shoplifting.
After stealing Bluetooth speakers from Asda, he returned the next day, this time bringing a Stanley knife to sever security tags.

As reported in the Burnley Express, a prolific shoplifter used her teeth to rip off security tags from bottles of rum in a branch of Tesco.

After being detained, Mary Howarth – a drug addict with a long criminal record – owned up and asked if the store could “turn a blind eye” to what she had done, a court was told.

The Sun reports that middle-class shoplifters are on the rise – raiding stores for luxury items like cheese, wine and fine Swiss chocolate such as Lindt.
Store bosses have reported a significant increase in shoplifters who “get a kick out of not paying for a bottle of wine or their Friday night steak”.

According to the BBC News website, a Fermanagh police officer has gone on trial charged with shoplifting.

Linda Totten has been charged with theft of £156.81 of goods from an Asda store on Christmas Eve 2013, and items of an unknown value four days earlier.