‘I wasn’t taking old ladies’ handbags’: Confessions of shoplifters who say prison isn’t the answer
Chris Downes’s piercing blue eyes stare out from the mugshot on a Cheshire Police news release.
He “has been causing problems within this town through shoplifting for over two decades”, it reads.
It announces a criminal behaviour order banning the 60-year-old from entering any part of his local town centre of Macclesfield and every Co-op store in Cheshire.
“I feel like I’ve been punished twice,” Chris says, once for the original offence and again with the banning order. It causes inconvenience with things like doctor’s appointments and shopping for him and his elderly mother.
Chris is one of those people we rarely hear from in all the talk about the explosion in shoplifting in Britain. He is one of that legion of shoplifters and agreed to speak to Sky News.
“Why did I do it? I did it because of a drug problem. I had no option,” he says.
“I know it’s wrong but it wasn’t hurting any individual as I see it. I wasn’t taking old ladies’ handbags, I’m not saying shoplifting is right but needs must I suppose.”
File pic
Addiction issues are a familiar feature of shoplifters’ stories. We have spoken to a number who, almost word for word, say the same as Chris Downes. They want things to be different, they say, but cannot break the cycle.
Chris describes the sensation of needing a hit as being “peeled alive” where even “your hair hurts”. Relieving that need for a hit is worth paying any price, he says. “It is an overwhelming urge.”
Chris says the feeling of needing drugs is like being ‘peeled alive’
Something else all shoplifters seem to say is that they never target small, independent shops but focus on the big high street names, as if their losses are somehow less important.
But there are other stories. “You’d be surprised who shoplifts,” says Chris. “Being a shoplifter you notice people and the signs more than security guards do and while they’re concentrating on me you’ll see a little old lady with a trolley lined with foil inside and putting bottles of whisky in. I’ve seen it very often.”
Read more:
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Even shoplifters are feeling the pinch too. Chris says £100 worth of stolen goods would once net £50, now he says he’s lucky to make £20.
The responsibility of caring for his mother has given Chris an impetus to clean up his act. His career as a cabinet maker and ceramicist are just some of what has become collateral damage to 40 years of addiction.
One man who has managed to break that cycle is Cullan Mais. As we walk through a suburban shopping street in Cardiff, he ticks off a list of what he could steal and from where during his very lucrative shoplifting career. He explains in detail the modus operandi of the seasoned thief.
Cullan Mais, an ex-shoplifter, now helps others out of addiction
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‘Shoplifting was my addiction’
He shares photos of his journey: caught on a security camera going into a shop to steal, his police mugshot, a harrowing image of him clucking – that is going cold turkey on a relative’s sofa, his shirtless body marked with the scars of a fierce battle with drugs.
Bearded and healthier-looking in smart sports casualwear, he now works trying to help others make the same journey out of addiction. He remembers it well, not least the amount of money he made.
Cullan caught on a security camera going into a shop to steal
Cullan’s mugshot
“Maximum I’ve made – two or three thousand in a day. I stole millions,” he says. “When the one shopping chain caught me, they valued all the things I stole at £2.8m – and that’s just the one shopping chain.
“Of course, I never made millions, that was just the retail price.”
Addiction again was the driving force.
“Every day, without fail, you’re going to make the money you need to make,” he says. “As a drug addict you’re not going home until you’ve made what you need to make to make sure you’re okay.
“And, you know, I think as the years went on, I got greedier and greedier.”
Cullan going ‘cold turkey’ from drugs on a relative’s sofa
Even though those days are long gone, he says, like any addict, the feeling never truly goes away.
“Shoplifting to me was an addiction in itself,” he says. “It was a buzz and I loved it. Even when I kicked my addiction, it was very hard not to think about it.
“Last Christmas I was working away and the Christmas songs came on the radio and it triggered me because it reminded me of going out at Christmas time to get money.”
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He says rehabilitation rather than prison is the answer. “Prison just made me a better criminal.”
But for the police and courts, trying to tackle a problem that costs business millions every year, prison is often the only option.
Assistant Chief Constable Alex Goss, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for shoplifting, said: “We know retail crime has a significant impact on victims which is why we are committed to doing all we can to reduce thefts and pursue offenders, especially those prolific and habitual offenders, who cause misery within the community.”
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
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The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
A dirty needle thrown less than 100 metres from the new injection centre
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
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