CCTV footage from a Surrey shop owner reveals brazen thieves comfortably stealing hundreds of pounds worth of stock before fleeing with full bags.
The co-owner of Between The Lines gift shop, Lindsey Kleinlercher, has expressed concerns about the rise in blatant shoplifting activities happening across all of the store’s 18 branches located in the southern part of England.
It comes as business owners in the Surrey town of Haslemere accuse police of sitting on their hands amid a recent surge in shoplifting.
At one of the shops owned by Ms. Kleinlercher in Hersham, a video captured a woman discreetly placing a beauty product inside a large black handbag, which led to a confrontation with a store employee.
The thief then promptly leaves the shop with the stolen goods still in her bag.
Ms Kleinlercher said she reported the incident to police but ‘nothing was done’.
She told MailOnline: ‘It makes me very cross, it makes my blood boil.
‘I get very frustrated because we do our bit but we’re not backed up.’
Meanwhile, in a separate incident recorded in Oxted, a man was caught on camera crouching down and hastily stuffing four candles into an open Sainsbury’s bag. The concerning trend of shoplifting is becoming more evident in various locations.
Ms Kleinlercher valued the high-end candles at £48 each, totalling £192.
However, the video does not depict the moments after the theft in which a staff member ran after the man to retrieve the stolen items before he ‘hit her in the face’, according to Ms Kleinlercher.
‘Luckily, CCTV cameras from across the road caught that and she was able to take the case to court and win damages.’
Despite this, the thief returned last Sunday to steal a further £160 worth of candles, Ms Kleinlercher said, and was subsequently rearrested.
‘The staff feel a mixture of very angry and also quite scared. We always say ‘do not put yourself in danger’.
‘If nothing is done, we’re going to have a nation of shoplifters. Organised crime is going to take over.’
Ms Kleinlercher said she gets ‘weekly’ calls from store managers reporting thefts.
‘Sometimes it’s two, three, four times a week.
‘The thieves know what they want. They come in and target specific items, particularly Jellycat soft toys because they’re collectibles.’
In a third clip, also in Hersham, a man walks in with an empty Waitrose bag and also swipes luxury candle sets from the shop’s front display.
‘It’s blatant and brazen and it’s not the people you’d automatically suspect any more,’ Ms Kleinlercher said.
‘There are the obvious ones with big bags and little kids who take Jellycats but there are also very normal well-to-do people coming in and stealing things, they don’t look like your normal thief.
‘It’s everywhere, it’s literally in every single town. Farnham, in particular, is appalling.’
The footage follows a spate of complaints from Surrey shop owners in recent months, who say shoplifting is on the rise due to a lack of police action.
Inge Dunbar, who owns the Sass and Spirit gift shop in nearby Haslemere, has paid for CCTV and extra staff in a bid to disrupt the crime wave.
‘What we get most often is actually well-off middle-aged women,’ she said.
‘That’s the thing. If someone’s stealing bread, of course you feel sympathy because they’re struggling.
‘But when they’re stealing in a shop like this? That’s not to do with the cost of living crisis.’
Ms Dunbar said the most popular items among shoplifters are clothes, jewellery and Jellycats – a popular soft toy brand.
‘Because of the layout of my shop, I can’t see what’s going on everywhere,’ she added.
‘When it started happening, I knew I had to get CCTV and hire another staff member so there are two of us covering the shop.’
The problem has become so bad in recent months that messages are sent in crime-busting WhatsApp groups ‘every single day’.
Shop owners inform one another if they have been stolen from and share CCTV footage of criminals to look out for.
In Farnham’s WhatsApp chat, even police and staff from chain stores like Waitrose are members.
And all business owners in Haslemere are aware of ‘particular’ shoplifters who frequent the town centre, but police action is still insufficient, according to Ms Dunbar.
‘You can tell immediately when some of them walk in because they’re holding big, empty bags,’ she said.
‘There are also particular people who we know to be repeat offenders.’
But Ms Dunbar said even a gentle police presence could alleviate pressure on business owners.
‘I know they’re overstretched. I know there are issues. But all it takes is a bit of a presence and that could deter people.’
Pat Smith, 70, who is a manager at Scope, said lots of people steal clothing to resell on online marketplaces such as Vinted.
‘We had this one beautiful hat on display in the window and it was taken in less than half an hour,’ she added.
‘People take things to resell them. They’re turning stealing into a business.’
The owner of MB Cyclery, Ben Marks, 37, had all of his shop windows smashed during a break-in last summer.
He said: ‘They broke all the windows overnight and nicked six bikes,’ he recalled.
‘We have an alarm that calls the police but these criminals know there are never any officers in the area, so they have some time before anyone shows up.
‘My partner and I managed to get here before the police did that night.’
Mr Marks is also a member of the WhatsApp chat dedicated to spotting shoplifters.
‘There’s a message on there every single day, I’d say. It was especially bad in the run up to Christmas.’
Haslemere’s reputation as a ‘quiet and safe area’ can actually work against shop owners because ‘thieves know that too’, Mr Marks said.
Stuart Warren, 59, who owns antique shop The Ark Stores, had three break-ins in a fortnight.
He said: ‘Shoplifting has definitely become a big problem in Haslemere.
‘Three times in two weeks thieves came along and broke our padlock and stole our stuff. We lost just under £3,000.
‘What was interesting, though, was that they didn’t take things I’d consider particularly easy to sell.
‘It seemed like a bunch of chancers who just grabbed what they could and hoped they could resell.’
Mr Warren said he thinks criminals have noticed the area is a ‘soft touch’ due to lack of police presence.
‘When I had those break-ins, the police were helpful but it would be good to have officers actually on the ground.
‘I think just having a couple around could be a real deterrent.’
Surrey Police responded by saying targeting shoplifting is a ‘priority’ for the force.
Chief Inspector Andy Hill said: ‘We would encourage any businesses to report because it helps us to build an information and intelligence picture.
‘When something is reported to us, we follow all those reasonable lines of enquiry, including circulating CCTV images with success to identify offenders.’
