Stealing should be no laughing matter

Jan 22 2012 by Roz Laws, Sunday Mercury

NAPOLEON is said to have disparagingly called us a nation of shopkeepers. But now, it seems, we’re more like a nation of shoplifters.

In a clever piece of timing, in the week when Antony Worrall Thompson was all over the news for stealing cheese from Tesco, Channel 4 showed the film Secrets of the Shoplifters – which revealed the startling fact that one in three of us admit to stealing from stores at one point in our lives.

Like Henry, a full-time Brummie shoplifter, who excused himself by saying: “I’m not mugging old ladies, they’re scum.” So that’s OK, then.

Reformed shoplifter Jamie gleefully revealed how he’d been jailed at 21 for stealing Tellytubbies. Eh-oh! That’s nothing to be proud of. But even he had standards, revealing how Primark was too cheap to bother with.

I was amazed that one middle-aged woman, who aimed higher, cheerfully allowed herself to be interviewed about stealing a 50p Maris Piper potato from Marks and Spencer. Now she’s banned from every M&S in the country but didn’t seem too bothered.

In fact the tone of the whole programme was one of levity at the crimes involved. At one point it turned into a thieves’ guide, as we were taught how to get objects past the door alarms.

With this kind of prevailing attitude, it’s no wonder last summer’s rioters felt it was fine to help themselves to items from the shelves.