Stashing six bottles of wine into a bag, a man wearing a dark jacket and beanie heads straight to the store exit without paying, barging by a female shop worker who blocks his way and only stopping when her colleague overpowers him just outside the doorway.
For the supermarket’s owner, Richard Inglis, the early morning fracas — captured on CCTV — was the day’s first attempted theft but was unlikely to be the last.
“I’ll probably have another three or four today,” Mr. Inglis said, adding that, while trying to stop shoplifters, he and his staff members had been punched, kicked, bitten, spat at, threatened with needles, racially abused and attacked with bottles.
“It’s like the Wild West out there at the moment.”Britain is seeing a surge in theft from its stores at the hands, stores say, of opportunistic shoplifters, marauding teenagers, people stealing to finance drug use and organized gangs intent on looting.
Persons:
Richard Inglis, —, “ I’ll, Mr, Inglis
Locations:
Britain