Mum shoplifting in Tesco

[1000yellowdaisies]

Not so much an Aibu but its bothering me.
I was in tesco before, just arrived and was faffing about near the entrance getting a scan as you shop scanner thing.
A lady was leaving the shop and the alarms went off. Security took her to one side and found she was leaving with stuff she hadn't paid for. The security guard and 3 staff from the customer service kiosk went through her push chair and when they found more unpaid for stuff they took her through to the back.
Her child was roughly same age as my youngest.

I feel sorry for her. Yes I know she could be a thieving chancer with enough money but she wasn't nicking luxuries like bottles of booze, it was nappies and calpol from what i saw. What will likely happen to her? She looked so embarrassed.

People are saying they have no sympathy but why not? How desperate do you think she is to steal nappies and Calpol? She wasn't stealing steak or champagne.
Why don't people have empathy anymore?

My father was an assistant supermarket manager in the 70’s. They were told to always prosecute even if it was a wee old soul or single mum and you felt sorry for them. It could be they need social services involvement to check as they might be struggling and not be claiming the full amount they are entitled to in benefited/pension etc. I worked part time in a supermarket when I was at uni and was assaulted by a man trying to
pass a dodgy cheque. I put the code through my till to alert security but he realised what was happening and tried to get the cheque back. I held onto it and got a fractured eye socket from the 2 punches he gave me, (he had massive sovereign rings on). Always let the store deal with things like this,

Because those of us who have worked in retail recognise it's usually stuff to sell on!!

Nappies and a look are expensive items and will get her some cash!

Asda essentials brand bread/pasta being stolen might show a genuine need

Nappies are essential if you have a baby or young child.
She might not be genuine but awful that people assume the worst and I have worked in retail for a number of years until recently.

I feel nothing but empathy for that poor lady x 😕

Thank you so much for being kind. I know what I did was wrong - I was brought up well, my mother would be incandescent if she knew I'd done that!
I was desperate at the time, and acted in the moment.
All these years later, I've never forgotten how dreadful that feeling was - the shame and guilt.
I'm a totally law abiding person nowadays, and I know I'm so fortunate to be in the position of being able to afford food.
I just cannot judge those who aren't.

When I lived in the UK, the news, when not obsessed with overseas stuff was obsessed with something called the Food Mountain, which was literally all the food that was wasted in the UK and Europe due to production outweighing demand!

In that situation you would think, wouldn’t you, that no one would ever go hungry. Wrong! Just as governments keep benefits low to keep people dependent on them, they won’t just hand out food or even enquire as to who needs food.

Today, at a time when my understanding is that quite a lot of British people are in food poverty, the food banks rely on charity to keep them going. Meanwhile, the UK has a PM that makes the Royal Family look like beggars in the workhouse!

And yet, too many people believe that it’s okay to sit in judgement over others that do what they can to feed their children! I wonder how many of these so-called good people will be checking on their elderly neighbours over this winter to make sure they have food and are able to heat their homes? How many will offer to bring people in to their homes to ensure that they are safe?

I despair of people as the humanity has appears to have completely wrong.

As to your mum, yes she would be incandescent and would properly rightly smack your hand but then, us mums of a certain age are a bit strange like that and still see our children as, well, our children 😊

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”)

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.

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 . 🤷🏻‍♀️.

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 )

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 .

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.

@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

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.

Clothes . Lots of clothes . And electricals .

ah makes sense! I was thinking of their foodhalls

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

If my baby needed nappies or cal

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