Supermarkets looted & cars nicked to order mean UK is in a theft epidemic – it’s shameful so little is done to stop it
LADY Isobel Barnett, a Scottish TV and radio personality, was just 62 when she ended her own life by taking an overdose of painkillers in the bath.
Her death, in 1980, came just four days after her conviction for shoplifting a can of tuna and a carton of cream from her village grocer in Cossington, Leicestershire.
Fined £75 in court and publicly vilified, it was widely perceived that a mixture of depression and shame proved too hard for her to bear.
Shame. Remember that? It’s clearly a wholly alien concept to the largely organised gangs of thieves now wreaking havoc in homes and retail outlets across the country.
Lady Isobel’s poor mental state meant she undoubtedly stole as a cry for help and should never have been prosecuted.
But fast forward 45 years and the pendulum has swung so far the other way that shoplifting now appears to have been downgraded by police as a crime barely worth bothering with.
Tech boss Paul Birch — founder of Bebo — had £500k of valuables stolen from his Surrey home but says it took police 12 hours to arrive and they didn’t even bother to view the CCTV footage.
His wife Juliana says: “Then we were told the officer in charge was going on holiday and would contact us in the new year. He never did.
“So my daughter called the police three or four days ago and found out the case had been closed.
“That is why these awful crooks get away with so many things, because it’s like the police are more interested in protecting the criminals than us, the targets.”
When two men came in and helped themselves to expensive handbags worth £17k, the panic alarm went unanswered at the police station
Indeed. Further evidence of this laissez-faire attitude to wide-scale theft is the experience of Paige Mengers, the owner of two high-end fashion boutiques in London’s Wimbledon and Cobham, Surrey.
She had spent “thousands” installing panic buttons linked to the nearest police station, CCTV cameras and anti-theft devices in a bid to thwart potential thefts.
But when two men came in and helped themselves to expensive handbags worth £17k, the panic alarm went unanswered at the police station.
And, despite two images of the suspects as clear as if they were “on television reading the news”, fingerprint evidence, eyewitness reports, and a photo of the licence plate of the car they drove away in, Ms Mengers was simply issued with a reference number while being told that the police wouldn’t be attending because it was shoplifting not a robbery.
After posting a video voicing her anger that police hadn’t “showed the slightest interest”, two Surrey officers eventually turned up because, they told her, she made “such a noise on social media”.
Both forces say they’re now investigating but no arrests have yet been made.
In the same week, Vishal Patel had four suitcases of valuables stolen from a Shurgard storage unit in north west London but located them thanks to the Apple AirTag trackers he’d placed inside.
He called the police who found one of the cases in the back of a van and arrested the driver on suspicion of handling stolen goods as well as possession of a flick knife.
In grip of theft epidemic
Slam dunk, you might think. But no, Mr Patel was astonished to be told three weeks later that the suspect had been released without charge because he was “not found to be in possession of the stolen items”.
We are in the grip of a theft epidemic and, unless it is prioritised for proactive policing and meaningful punishments in our courts, it is only going to get a whole lot worse.
“This is just a lie,” he says. “We caught him red-handed and they just let him go. I did most of the work for them and they have still blown it.”
All of the above cases made the papers in just one week. How many more examples didn’t?
Meanwhile, supermarket managers across the country report that it is now a daily occurrence for shelves to be looted by shoplifters without legal consequence, cars are being stolen to order by criminal gangs but police rarely show an interest beyond issuing a reference number for insurance claims, and online financial scams are rife.
We are in the grip of a theft epidemic and, unless it is prioritised for proactive policing and meaningful punishments in our courts, it is only going to get a whole lot worse.
Fair ’play, Dakota’s smile is convincing
HOLLYWOOD actor Dakota Johnson has mastered the art of the beatific smile.
Whatever may, or may not, be going on in her life, her expression always conveys a sense of calm contentment.
Despite reports of a split from long-term boyfriend and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, here they are looking “relaxed and happy”, according to reports, at a temple in Mumbai, India.
But with her gloriously high cheekbones and enigmatic aura, Ms Johnson could be in a state of high bliss or inwardly thinking, “When we get in the tuk tuk, I’m going to give him hell.”
We’ll never truly know.
Jade’s little miffed
FORMER Little Mix star Jade Thirlwall is about to release her first solo album.
The lyrics to one of the tracks include: “I smile and wave when we’re at this event. Once we leave I will not play pretend.”
Ah, yes. A familiar scenario to anyone in a long-term relationship.
How many of us have had a fleeting tiff with our other half at a party and thought we’d got away with it because they’ve carried on laughing and chatting to others?
Only for their smile to vaporise the second we get in the car. If you’re lucky, you get the silent treatment the whole way home.
If not, then buckle your seatbelt. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
THE average age we turn into our parents is 43.
Signs are moaning about the rain (tick), failing to recognise music in the charts (tick), dressing for comfort (double tick) and being in bed by 10pm.
I haven’t ticked the last one because, with my 63rd birthday incoming, I’m usually asleep long before then.
GREEN energy tycoon Dale Vince has claimed “total vindication” in his divorce from wife Kate after a judge awarded her more than, gulp, £40m.
He says it’s less than he offered her in the first place, so there.
Here he is looking defiant outside London’s High Court.
As he’s reportedly saved a few bob, hopefully he can now afford a new pair of trousers.
Lesson in snub to Kiki
NO man is a hero to his valet, as the old saying goes.
And perhaps even less so to parents and grandparents.
They wiped your nose/bum so, irrespective of whether you end up curing cancer or running a country, to them you’re still that dependent, snotty/s***ty brat and will always be regarded as such.
Thus, there are numerous A-list movie stars who say their parents still ask them when they’re going to get “a proper job”.
Meanwhile, singer Kiki Dee has revealed her parents’ reaction when, while topping the charts with her Elton John duet Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, she invited them to New York to see it performed live.
They replied: “We’d love to but we’ve booked our caravan holiday.”
Money can’t buy that lesson in humility.
Ready, set… no!
THE woman who actually owns Carrie Bradshaw’s iconic New York flat from Sex And The City has been granted permission to install a gate to keep Instagrammers from posing on her front steps.
An historic place has its charms, but during my brief stint living on the Georgian terraces of Roupell Street in London’s Waterloo, the novelty of constantly walking out of the front door and straight on to the film set of a period drama wore thin very quickly.
Particularly when, thanks to my early morning dishevelment, one crew member mistook me as an extra for some Victorian melodrama.