Inside Britain's shoplifting capital where even Greggs staff have panic buttons
Welcome to Britain’s shoplifting capital – where staff at the local Greggs have panic alarms and lose nearly £200 a day in nicked doughnuts and sausage rolls.
We spent 24 hours with officers from Cleveland Police tasked with tackling some of our most lawless high streets. The area from Hartlepool to Stockton-on-Tees has the highest shoplifting rate in the country – 15 times as many thefts each year as Surrey. It’s a place where thieves openly sell stolen gear to fuel their drug habits.
Criminals cherry-pick the priciest items such as meat and washing powder and flog the goods to hard-up people who can’t afford supermarket prices. One senior police officer admitted: “Shop owners are beyond sick and tired. They’re losing thousands of pounds and there’s very little they can do to stop it.” Police work around the clock to catch criminals but fight a losing battle with lags reoffending the moment they’re released. Locating them is also a challenge – with many postcode-hopping to avoid detection.
Our visit came as shocking statistics reveal shoplifting offences in England and Wales rocketed in the last year. Some 365,164 thefts were recorded by police in the year to June, up 25% on the previous 12 months. The rise has been much higher in the North East. At Greggs on Middlesbrough high street, staff now wear panic buzzers to alert colleagues if a violent thief enters the shop.
Shop owner Jamie talks to the cops (North News & Pictures northnews.co.uk)Manager Lynne said: “It’s rife, they’ll come in and help themselves to the sandwiches, they’ll take the doughnuts, they’ll take a handful of sausage rolls. It’s absolutely disgusting. They’re abusive and nasty. One of my colleagues was hit and punched by a woman when he tried to confront her. And I had to press my panic button the other week when a man came in and swept up all the sandwiches and threw the metal tray on the floor. They don’t just take – they actually choose what they want and then walk past the window sarcastically waving at you.”
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In Eston, Middlesbrough, the situation is so bad that the Tesco Express has to lock the doors at night and allow entry through a buzzer system. Staff have also permanently barricaded one of the doors because thieves took advantage of the easy exit.
At the station, Chief Inspector Zoë Kelsey, who heads up the town’s neighbourhood cops, told us: “We speak to shop owners on a daily basis who are beyond sick and tired. They’re losing thousands of pounds and there’s very little they can do to stop it. The Shell garage across the road is always hit hard. The majority steal to fund their drug habits.”
Just down the road at a block of flats, police cuffed serial meat thief Jason Galloway, who was dragged into the van shouting expletives and throwing gun symbols. The 20-year-old was nicked for pocketing gammon steak priced £12 from Spar and a basket of beef brisket, burgers and chicken worth a total of £24 from Sainsbury’s. The crook was later locked up for 16 weeks after pleading guilty to the two thefts and breaching a community behaviour order.
We later joined officers on arrests in and around Middlesbrough town centre, the area’s second-highest shoplifting patch. Our first doorknock led to the arrest of a 44-year-old crook who has racked up 60 previous convictions. The felon – who allegedly nabbed £58-worth of washing powder capsules from discount homeware chain One Beyond – was taken straight to police HQ for questioning and later charged. He is due in court on November 2. Eleanor Griss, head of security at One Beyond in the town’s shopping arcade, said her job was getting “harder and harder.”
She told us: “It’s incredibly frustrating and a massive, massive issue – it’s probably something you deal with five to seven times a day. You’re also constantly assaulted. I’ve been launched into walls and thrown on the ground multiple times. It’s chaotic.”
Managers at the store have resorted to moving pricier goods near the tills in a bid to deter poachers. It’s a similar story for Jamie Johnson, who owns neighbouring JJ’s Sweets. The 26-year-old has battled with a continual stream of shoplifters since opening five years ago and wants to see tougher sentences for prolific offenders.
He said: “The current system of locking people up for four weeks isn’t working because they’re out after a month and they’re doing it again. It’s the same names we see here time and time again. Staff members are often assaulted and one guy broke my hand last year when I tried to stop him leaving. It’s something my staff should not have to put up with.”
Serial meat thief Galloway put in police van (North News & Pictures northnews.co.uk)PC Chris Swales, Middlesbrough’s shoplifting police lead, agrees the system is failing, adding: “It’s small things – like prisoners are usually released Friday which means they have nowhere to go for the weekend so they start stealing. If they were released on Mondays then we could organise somewhere for them to stay and they’ll be less likely to go out and steal. They get their benefits, spend it all on drugs, then have a period of around two weeks before their next payment so they steal to plug that gap.”
Police figures released in September show that parts of the North East saw the country’s biggest rise in shoplifting – over 60% in May and July compared to the same period in 2022. Middlesbrough has the third-highest unemployment rate in a region that has been hit by years of Tory austerity cuts.
Chief Inspector Pete Littlewood, Cleveland’s operational lead on retail crime, said: “With our town centres, retail parks, supermarkets and particularly local convenience stores suffering from an increase in people stealing, the force is proactive in preventing, reducing and catching those who regularly steal from shops.
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"Efforts are also made to arrest the top five shoplifters each week, and officers regularly carry out problem solving work to prevent reoffending by making applications for Criminal Behaviour Orders. The Neighbourhood Teams take part in regular weeks of action to target retail crime, in shopping centres and engagement activity with both retailers and shoppers.”
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