The day I caught a nun and a priest shoplifting
Chef Antony Worrall Thompson with wife Jacinta Shiel at Malahide Rugby Club, Co Dublin,
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Oscar Wilde -- who else? -- famously said that the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about. You'd have to wonder if Antony Worrall Thompson agrees.
Over a week since being caught shoplifting at Tesco, the celebrity chef is still the butt of online jokes and trending on Twitter.
The star of Ready, Steady, Cook stole "low-value" items including cheese and wine, and has been taking the flak ever since. Like so: "The Antony Worrall Thompson diet: cheese and wine, followed by porridge."
"He stole some cheese and wine. And that was only for starters."
"I went to see Ready, Steady, Cook the other day. Antony stole the show."
All very amusing, but what makes a successful chef and businessman do something like this? What makes anyone shoplift who isn't a career criminal or compelled by economic exigencies?
Worrall Thompson couldn't shed any light, merely saying, "I've been racking my brains to think why on earth I did it and what was going through my mind."
A raft of explanations for this offence have been proposed: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; the pressures of our hyper-consumerist society; the psychological appeal of getting a "gift" (in other words, something for nothing), as a substitute for loss in some other area of life; as political protest or revenge on the "system"; to relieve stress and boredom...
Depression is also a factor; Barbara Staib, of the US-based National Association for Shoplifting Prevention, says there is a "direct correlation between depression and shoplifting."
She adds: "Shoplifters are generally honest citizens. Some people are trying to find solace in it -- it gives them a rush. It can be a relief, if only temporary. They go into a store and the opportunity arises. For some reason they rationalise, convince themselves it's okay -- for that moment. This is maladaptive behaviour: a way of coping with things going on in their lives."
David (not his real name) is a representative of the Irish Security Industry Association, based in Northumberland Road in Dublin. He works as an industry consultant, and has over two decades' hands-on experience in the retail sector. During that time, working in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, he caught many offenders of a surprising stripe.
David says: "You will catch people shoplifting who don't need to -- who are doing it for kicks or some other personal reason -- though they're not as prevalent as they used to be, for some reason.
"Down the years, I've come across all sorts -- even a priest, a nun. It's amazing, really. It's like they had a total breakdown, just for that second. They'll say: 'I don't know what came over me'."
Shoplifting is often seen as a "victimless crime" -- nobody is being physically or psychologically traumatised, the argument goes -- but this is fallacious on a number of levels. For starters, there is a victim: the economy, and by extension, you as a consumer.
According to the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME), businesses lose €200m a year to theft, a fifth of that over Christmas.
ISME chief Mark Fielding recently said: "Retailers have to try to get lost money back somehow. Sometimes they'll put it on the cost of goods, so the consumer pays for it" -- up to 3pc more at the till.
Shoplifting also drives small enterprises out of business: they don't have insurance to cover it, and losses break the back of tight profit margins. And it doesn't stop there.
As David outlines, the threat to security guards from some shoplifters is real and immediate: "The professional shoplifter will generally have some form of offence on them. Certain groups would be known to carry blades or spikes."
Working in security is also mentally gruelling.
"To do the job properly," David says, "you have to be alert from start to finish. When I was on the floor myself, I found that very tiring. A shoplifter is so fast, you could miss something small being palmed. You need to be on top of your game."
The battle goes on, and there are a number of different ways the latter go about it.
"While on duty in the store itself, without giving away too many trade secrets, there would be a pool of well-known shoplifters in the busier shopping centres, and our guys would be alert to those people coming in. And there are some giveaway signs: eye movement, hand movement, what they're carrying, how they're dressed ...
"They're often little things. A basic example would be: wearing a large overcoat in summer. That's not right! Or carrying an old bag from one of the higher-end retailers, a bag that's had multiple uses, or empty bags -- that's another indicator."
As for the offenders themselves, apart from the "temporary insanity" category, David says: "You also have the opportunist, who will take something simply because it's there.
"And at the moment, you have people stealing out of need, I suppose -- they want to continue the lifestyle they got used to before our current economic situation."
More victims of the recession, then, who in turn create further victims: all of us.
- Darragh McManus
Irish Independent
