Mum shoplifting in Tesco

Well. at least you admit that it's all your imagination.

If it involves a child we have to report to the police.
If it meets the criteria for child exploitation (I don't think the one in OP does) the police have to categorize it as I cat/grade 1 for immediate response (within 20 mins)
In other cases police rarely attend the store itself but the security & loss prevention colleague would have taken her details & asked to see ID this would then be reported online to police.
CCTV is also supplied to the police & stored for recognition & identification (depending on company policy)
Police would assess the report & follow up & would complete a safeguarding referral.

You feel sorry for her jeez.
Stuffs not free.
Perhaps you wouldn't be sympathetic if she stole from you.🙆

Is steal too or the local fruggies round here steal to order anyway
they walked out of our local tesco with £80 worth of toilet roll the otherday
staff said they will do nothing 😳

calpol and the only way was to steal iy or baby goes without…. Then Well I know what I’d do 😟

If my baby needed nappies or cal

I agree.

I had no idea how expensive formula was until I had a young couple as clients, they had a baby and the mother was unable to breastfeed. They were spending a fortune on formula and nappies, and it got worse as the baby got bigger. It was a real strain on their budget.

When my DB was a baby, my mum got "National Dried Milk" either free or very cheap from the "baby clinic", along with concentrated orange juice and her "milk tokens". I don't know if it was means-tested or not, but it really helped.

And she got a £25 maternity grant, which in the 1960s was a decent amount of money, and enough to buy all the fabric nappies she needed plus a load of other stuff.

I had no idea that people stole such basics to sell on either, and no-one's ever offered me cheap meat or bacon!

A thief is a thief. It annoys me because it makes life more difficult for other customers going in with buggies.

Not the point, I know, but not long ago I was startled to see that a tub of ordinary Aptamil baby milk was £4 more expensive than the equivalent Cow and Gate. That was in Asda.
Roughly £9 vs. £13 IIRC.

Why would anyone choose to pay so much more? Unless of course they assume that more expensive must = better - not uncommon, I know.

It's very common at our store and has been going on for many years. Also people on disability scooters and in wheelchairs are some of our most prolific offenders because they think no one will approach them. They play at being classed as vulnerable, and the amount of customers that then come forward and offer to pay and off they go again until the next week.
During covid we had a very aggressive customer shouting at staff refusing to let him have x amount of limited items. Shouting and swearing he had kids to feed etc, caused a massive scene, he got extremely nasty, security were next to useless, the manger gave in and let him take the lot, he walks brazenly out to the car park , trolley piled high to his huge white van skewed across the disabled bay taking up two spaces, opens up his van doors and lo and behold, hundreds of similar items, he was just going round from one supermarket to another creating same old scene.

Very sad. I do wonder though why someone would need to do that given there is so much help and benefits available and also why they have chosen to have a child if they are that poor. I feel sorry for the child, it sounds like it has a tough life ahead

All our supermarkets report shoplifters for info .

Many are regulars so we know who they are from cctv .

We have a shoplifting team at work now but we do expect the stores to help by giving us cctv to go h many actually don't / can't be arsed / do t know how to operate it / download footage etc .

It's unlikely a one off down on their luck mum would get arrested.
I had a lady struggling g with her hubbys dementia once who filled a bag in Morrisons and walked out . It was a desperate cry for
Help and I got her the help .

Shoplifters do it for a variety of reasons. You assess the individual circumstances.

ah makes sense! I was thinking of their foodhalls

Clothes . Lots of clothes . And electricals .

It’s highly unlikely that they would call the police. The police do not care unless the staff are being threatened. They’ll probably ban her but that’s about it.

@AnyaMarx I know M&S is slightly dear, but struggling to visualise how one person tried to steal £800 at once. Did they try and push out a trolley full of wine or something lol I can’t imagine how their loot totalled that much

Children get free prescriptions. Therefore she has alternative options for her baby if she seeks medical help for their ailment.

If she has no/low funds for nappies there are government benefits she can access. Sometimes the local authorities can give short term crisis grants to help top-up benefits like UC. There are charities/food banks that can provide nappies.

I feel sorry for anyone who can’t afford medicine or nappies, but I hope they can access alternatives when they need it vs shoplifting.

You h and as a cop - stores do NOT help themselves.

I'm always asking for cctv- regular shoplifters in traps - need cctv for court - answer? No one can work it
Get it next week (too late pal !)
Blah blah .

Most stores don't give a shit tbh .

And I see zero difference between stealing to eat and stealing to feed a habit as it happens . A habit is no less desperate than starving.

Been a police officer a long time now . I have as much sympathy for addicts as anyone else who has to steal .

It's those who do t have to but do it anyway I get pissed off with (looking at mr asylum with his £800 a day spree who needs deportation asap )

As a police officer - if she is genuinely stealing to live they'll give her a caution - and if she's not a regular . And they f it were me who n the case will d be referring her to food banks / etc

If she's stealing to order she'll go to court

Don't fret. We had an asylum seeker last week stealing g £800 quids worth a day from m&s.

Must be nice to earn that much . As a cop I'm on a lot less . 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I've got a little bit of sympathy for people who steal food to feed their children but no sympathy for those that steal stuff to resell in order to feed their drug habit. They should be banned from all stores in the region.

The shop has a wide range of options from:

-asking her to pay
-banning her from the shop
-calling police however it is unlikely police would attend, which is why retailers prefer to deal with it in store
-stern warning
-writing her details to pass onto civil recovery companies (unsure if she legally needs to pay but they will send a payment request via post to recoup “losses”)