Greggs shifts food behind counters to stop thieves

[SerendipityJane]

I'm old enough that my DM was more used to this sort of operation than the new fangled "self service" that appeared in the 60s.

Once again the feeling of travelling backwards in time doesn't seem to quite go away.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c17r52rvj2lo

Remember face creams are small and pricey. A pot of eye cream can be £35.

Price, value and worth aren't synonyms.

It was just one shelf about 1.5 metres wide. About 165 pots so about £10.80. Also when things are stolen, Sainsburys apply the full cost to the value. So not counting Nectar Prices, I think Tesco do the same.

I say if anyone bought the face creams with a Nectar card, they would not cost them £1800, more like £1200.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter if Greggs is the worst place in the world. YOU DO NOT STEAL.

Back in the 70s at primary school, some boys stole sweets from the village shop. Being absolute geniuses, they were wearing their school ties. The shopkeeper called the headmaster, who identified and caned the culprits, and we had an assembly about the evils of stealing. Can you imagine that today? Not even the caning part, the being shamed in public - now it would be a simple shrug.

ODFO

More like doing the work of the other agencies who don't have staff so pass every fucking problem to the police who as a result can't actually get out to fight crime because they're sitting in hospitals babysitting people with alleged mh issues or parenting children or clearing up someone else's mess.

Believe me most cops would far rather get back to the days where they dealt with crime like shoplifting rather than being the Jack of all trades they're expected to be now

This makes me so angry. Every parent of every child in that cctv will know it's their child and i bet my bottom dollar they will not punish their child. 😡
We have just had a 16 year old stabbed to death on a beach at the weekend. This beach is awful during the summer, teenagers travel there from Glasgow and other Central belt towns. They cause mayhem, get steaming drunk, take drugs, fight and leave their broken bottles everywhere. The trains from Glasgow arrive every half hour with hundreds of teens on them, the Coppers know these kids are carrying drugs, drink and weapons but are powerless to stop them.
The parents of the young lad killed are calling for a ban, saying something must be done but they are part of the problem, they allowed their teen to travel on 2 trains to get to this beach even though they know what goes on there. Every parent of every child that had travelled to be there need to look inside themselves. Parents need to parent.

Ah the North face/Nike brigade.

A lot of these must be repeat offenders, if the police bothered picking them and just tagging and curfewing the bastards a lot of theft would be wiped out.

Yep. These people have no shame in them. And anyway, nowadays, we're terrified of shaming anyone incase they find it bloody triggering FFS.

We should definitely bring back public condemnation and shaming when it is rightly deserved.

Those sweat shirt material baggy shorts are the latest shop lifting uniform where I live. The pockets go from the waist to almost the bottom of the shorts so are quite big and easily fit a bottle of spirits in each one or so I am told by the woman who works in my Sainsbury's local.
They are not teenagers who are stealing them but 30 somethings.

Skater jeans with pockets big enough to put skateboards in were used to.

If school pupils shoplift in school uniform the school should be contacted by the retailer to inform them.

Definitely needed saying twice. I agree that's how important an issue this is.

I think it’s a use of AI, they will compile and keep footage and then nab them when shoplifting. Call police and hand over compiled evidence. Or that is the theory, really I’m not sure how much weight the police give it.

There just isn’t space in jails, it costs a fortune. I’d be tagging, curfews,banned from stores, community payback in a very streamlined process.

There was a programme on TV recently about foreign gangs that would target Morrisons I think it was. Over the space of a few months or a year, the gangs went across the country and stole tens of thousands of pounds worth of goods -possibly more… a particular police unit did eventually track them down. It was amazing that they identified the network and even potential leaders of the gang.

Here it is -

Dispatches on C4 followed a group of shoplifters who were stealing millions every year from supermarket stores in the UK, they were suppling market stalls with their entire stock, once they infiltrated the EE gang, they discovered an illegal marriage scam too, charging 10,000 plus monthly fees for a wife visa while stealing millions in shop stock in gangs, it is a huge business, they were exported a lot of stock too, while claiming benefits and housing payments.

Yeh - that’s the one. I thought it was really good. Wouldn’t let me link it tho.

Forty + years ago it was a huge thing to be caught shoplifting. The store could detain the thief and the police would attend, the thief could end up with a criminal record for one offence. Nowadays it's just a normal thing to witness.

https://news.sky.com/story/prolific-shoplifter-banned-from-every-greggs-in-england-and-wales-13371954

yes classic dark grey SL ‘uniform’

Releasing the bodycam video on social media, the Metropolitan Police described the outcome as the "end of his sausage roll era".

that did make me chuckle though

I work in a department store and a few months ago security came to talk to me about someone who had been spotted and arrested shop lifting.

She was a very well dressed woman who came up to me and asked me to go to the stock room and get her sizes in expensive items and then she stole them. I mean the sheer audacity of the woman.

You want to steal?????

I often see on my town’s police fb page posts about how they have arrested shoplifters. These are probably the ones stealing high value items - meat, alcohol etc. I wonder if they will start cracking down on the lower level thefts that all add up and affect businesses like Greggs

Persistent offenders. Like this numbnut https://www.westmidlands.police.uk/news/west-midlands/news/news/2025/may/prolific-shop-thief-is-jailed/

Yes, I think that's how more and more shops will go. Keep the customers separated from the stock and get back to staff picking and handing over prepaid orders, having been made online or via touch screens. So basically same number of staff but instead of taking orders, handing money, etc., they're picking stock to fulfil prepaid orders as per screens. Just really a lot like McDonalds, who are usually the pioneers for changes and everyone else follows.