Category Archives: Shoplifting

According to The Telegraph, a Romanian criminal was caught shoplifting twice – during his first four days of arrival in the UK.

Coventry magistrates heard Andrei Alexandru Burnei wasted no time in stealing when he arrived in Britain on March 9 as he was arrested on the same day.

The Oxford Times reports that a mother who went on a £1,200 shoplifting spree with three other women has been jailed for three months.

Charlotte Connors, 21, was involved in four thefts in one day whilst already serving a suspended sentence for a proceeds of crime offence.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has recently reported that retail crime in the UK reached its highest level for ten years in 2014.

Shoplifting, cybercrime and fraud cost retailers more than £600m, in spite of businesses spending an average of £2m each on crime and loss prevention measures.

A prolific shoplifter has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to the theft of more than £800 of items – his latest in a string of over 175 offences.

Police said: “Howard Lawrence has a horrendous history of offending, amounting to almost 80 convictions taking in 175 offences nationwide.”

The Western Daily Press reports that a ‘brainless’ shoplifter left behind his address and identity records after stealing a coat from TK Maxx.

Stephen Priddis went into the store, hung his jacket up and took another one. In one of his pockets was a police national computer memo with his details.

A grandmother and her two granddaughters have been given suspended sentences for an ‘organised shoplifting spree’.

Sentencing the trio, District Judge Barney McElholm said this was an ‘organised shop lifting ring’ and to suggest otherwise ‘was an insult to everyone’s intelligence’.