Shop chain clamps down on thieving
Thursday 11th March 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
SANDPIPER stores are taking a zero tolerance approach following a rise in shoplifting.
The company, which runs Checkers and Safeway, has spent £180,000 on CCTV surveillance for its stores in Jersey and Guernsey.
‘We’ve got CCTV operating in all our stores and we’ve employed a covert store detective and enhanced staff training to identify and deal with shoplifters,’ said operations director Mark Cox (pictured).
‘Where we can, we will be looking to prosecute to reclaim our costs.’
He said the rise might be down to an increased focus on preventing shoplifters in the first place, but the recession may also have had an impact. ‘When money is hard to come by, people look for alternative methods to supplement their income.’
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There is some confusion here and I would appreciate a response from Sandpiper on the following.
It was reported that you said ‘Where we can, we will be looking to prosecute to reclaim our costs.’ Also that you have ‘increased focus on preventing shoplifters in the first place’.
Being as that you have employed a covert store detective and bearing in mind the costs on the public purse for prosecutions would you please answer the following question.
If the detective thought that someone intended to shoplift would he approach them and deal with the matter in store or would he assist in the theft by way of making himself scarce so as to enable a court prosecution to take place?
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Steven the thread of your post seems to be that you feel that shoplifters should not be prosecuted because the tax payer funds the legal system.What a twisted post you wrote! By your reasoning a policeman who hides whilst watching a crime “go down” and then makes an arrest is assisting in a crime. are you living on the same planet as the rest of us?
For your peace of mind theft is theft and taxpayers are paying for it anyway. I work in retail and I’m telling you shoplifting is definately on the increase along with fraud, intimidation,threatening behaviour,vandalism and many other forms of antisocial behaviour.
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Whilst I agree that shoplifting should be targeted by Sandpiper, I hardly call 1 covert detective and enhanced training for the few staff that ever seem to be in the smaller stores a zero tolerance approach. It is far to easy to avoid the cctv systems if you are hell bent on stealing and 1 detective spread across all the stores is clearly insufficient…nice idea but doesn’t seem likely to work based on this article anyway!
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Yes your honour, we had good reason to believe that the defendant was about to attack Kevin but that our presence was deterring him. We then proceeded to pretend to leave the area to allow the attack to take place. We thought that Kevin was being hurt quite badly by the defendant but we couldn’t be sure so we let it continue for a while longer. It was just as well we did because if we had intervened earlier the defendant would only have been charged with causing grevious bodily harm instead of murder.
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thanks steven you have just confirmed what I thought.
You are definately not living on the same planet as the rest of us!
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Kevin, a simple question for you.
In the above scenario did the police assist in your demise?
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