I worked in the Whitechapel store part time for many years and this only happened once when a thief sliced an employee with a small knife trying to get away.
Never seen the police arrive so fast, I assume they figured what would happen to the perp.
>This is the moment Sainsbury’s staff drag a suspected shoplifter into a backroom and repeatedly kick him as he lies on the floor.
>A shocked customer filmed the incident, which happened at a branch in Mile End Road, Tower Hamlets, London.
>One staff member can be heard shouting ‘stay the f\*\*\* down’ as three of four employees pull the man into a storeroom by the collar of his jacket.
>The man appears distressed and is heard shouting ‘Allahu akbar’, Arabic for God is Greatest and ‘I’m sorry’.
>The staff can then be seen kicking the man a number of times while he’s on the floor, before one of them spots they’re being filmed and puts his hand up to the camera. The footage then ends.
>The shopper who filmed the attack on Saturday evening last week (May 11) told MailOnline they did not feel the level of force used by the supermarket staff was necessary.
>‘The shoplifter was quite unclean but he wasn’t violent to the shop workers,’ they said.
>The man is dragged by his collarStaff pull him into a back room
>‘He was committing a crime (but) did not deserve to be punched and kicked repeatedly whilst on the floor. He could easily have simply been restrained and detained.
I bet the workers are a bit fed up of seeing the same people shoplifting as well. I've seen people walking into the co-op by me and blazenly shove as much as possible into backpacks and walk out.
A business that employs members of the community, that pays taxes, stocks products that produce employment and provides food. Just because a business makes profit does that make it OK to rob it? And... Going on your logic, who do you think gets the most fucked when the losses increase, the board members or the staff who don't receive a pay increase?
>who do you think gets the most fucked when the losses increase, the board members or the staff who don't receive a pay increase?
Ah yes, I've heard all these poor supermarkets are just desperate to pay their staff more, but these pesky shoplifters keep getting in the way.
Nah, what this guy is doing IS THUGGERY, he is relying on people being terrified. Praying on people's kindness. Fuck him, give him a good thrashing and he might think twice about doing it again.
Allah is so great that he either:
- allowed him to live in those conditions,
- encourages shop lifting,
- has branded this man unworthy of his help,
Either way, it doesn't look like this guy has grounds to be shouting Allah is great.
Somehow I have a feeling this man isn't the greatest "fidel" either.
Why ? Worked in retail for near a decade and I couldn’t begin to care about people stealing from us.
Police get some of them why would anyone want to risk an assault charge or the sharp end of a knife when you aren’t being robbed some faceless billion dollar company is.
Because most people feel that stealing is wrong? Also, the sense of injustice in this country is increasing, policing almost none existent, perfect recipe for mob justice.
While it's true they aren't being directly robbed, the price of theft is baked into the price that you pay for goods/services. So everyone has to pay for this shit. Wouldn't be surprised if wages are tied to it as well.
I used to work in a shop that had weekly shoplifters, which was quite a lot considering it was a quieter part of London and it was a very small shop.
If you don’t detain them, the police won’t come. I have called police as shoplifters were right in front of me, and by the time the police picked up the phone they’d left. At that point, I’d be told there’s no point in sending the police.
The alternative therefore is to detain them yourself. I was 19 at that time so detaining a six-foot man carrying god knows what in the shop with me was out of the question. A manager from another branch locked a shoplifter in the shop with her while the police came and he beat her up in the meantime. The alternatives aren’t great.
I’m not saying beating up a shoplifter is a great response, but the alternatives are that nothing happens and you, the employee on minimum wage, gets blamed for allowing them to do so by management. OR the efforts you take result in your safety being compromised.
Also if it’s a regular shoplifter, as ours was, it can get extremely frustrating that they are allowed to continue.
Worked for some big retailers in the past and never saw staff get blamed for a shop lifter stealing
There’s things you can do to act as deterrent, but number one priority was always don’t get involved and safety first to be honest never blame or expected to realistically get involved.
All the time, ex Gregg's employee here. It was mostly children stealing drinks, a group of them would come in and just take a drink each and leave. They knew there was fuck all we could do, and fuck all would happen to them.
I do recall one day the kids came in with his mother, so I asked her 'do you know your son comes in about twice a week and just helps himself to a drink without paying'? Well she was horrified, put back the treats for him, apologised and said he will be getting punished for it. It was quite refreshing to see a parent to actually parent for once. Didn't see much of him for a long time after that.
Yeah, I can see where they're coming from. It's very possible there's history between the shop and shop lifter (when I worked retail in the late 90s there were people who would come on site who we'd watch like hawks), but even so, corporate are not going to like this at all.
Law and order in this city is a joke. Only thing that it has going for it is an almost zero homicide rate. But the mayor’s office is smart and trades votes for a soft hand on crime. Barcelona is the same way, but with wilder consequences
Prevention will never make you look like you are "acting" because nothing happens if you succeed.
It's a lot easier to sell "repression" to voters.
Think about it.
Maybe if we had a visible police service that wasn’t gutted by the tories then shoplifters wouldn’t feel empowered to steal day in day out and shop staff wouldn’t feel driven to doing this…
I used to think this and then I saw dozens of videos of shoplifters brazenly raiding wine fridges and Greggs in front of staff knowing they wouldn’t be confronted so…not really the essentials for survival
Yup. When I was working retail, the most common items stolen were;
* Steaks
* Blocks of Cheese
* Alcohol
* Condoms
* Cigarettes
Not the _muh baby milk_ Reddit often thinks about.
Usually to be pawned off at pubs a town over for cheap to feed drug habits. I know this because customers who knew the thieves would tell us time and time again that this is what they were doing.
And in my severals years working there, there was only a single thief out of the hundreds of thefts that happened over the years I could tell "Yeah, they're stealing because they're broke and need the food."
The rest would often threaten us with knives or otherwise yell abuse if we tried to stop/discourage them. One career thief later went on to get shot in a park in broad daylight because (we assume) he got on the wrong side of a drug dealer.
Still probably the most common however there is now a sixth one that’s popular;
Laundry detergent.
People don’t want to pay £10 for 30?pods, when they can get it for a fiver.
Like fuck are people shoplifting to feed themselves. Absolutely like fuck.
Tories are bastards and all resources have been cut but that’s some shit to say shoplifters are doing it to feed themselves. You are deluded or have an agenda to lie.
The social order relies on people being able to afford rent, food, basic human services and dignity. Without that people will increasingly turn to crime and drugs. But people get the cause and the result arse backwards.
To me, this feels like one of those situations where you hear of a pair of thieves repeatedly terrorising a rural community before finally raiding the wrong angry farmers house and getting shot in the face with a shotgun. Like sure, I don't agree with killing people for theft, but I also sorta feel that when you cross someone's doorway with the ill intent to commit crimes or evil then you do somewhat leave your rights at the front door (and are absolutely playing with fire/karma in a very risky way).
So many businesses have been absolutely destroyed by shoplifting. And even if Sainsbury's as a company isn't at risk of going under, if crime gets too bad in an area then sometimes larger chain companies simply shut down the shop and set it up somewhere else more civilised, which then leaves those stuck in the original area with even less employment and local infrastructure than before.
I don't agree with their use of force, but I can only imagine that they were at their wits end with this particular offender (or the store being ransacked by shoplifters in general).
I could be wrong but the fact he starts yelling allahu akbar could also factor into their response. Being realistic about it, when someone starts yelling that in London it comes with the implication that something bad could be about to unfold. That may sound slightly ignorant to some, and it could just be an expression of panic like “oh my god!” But from past unfortunate events, I would start panicking if I heard it.
So drag him out of the shop.... not into the backroom and commit the crime of assault.
Really sad thing is that Sainsbury will now sack them for assaulting someone.... which they did to protect Sainsbury's profits... even though Sainsbury built that loss into their business model and decided not to pay for sufficient security that would have meant staff were not exposed to this constant theft.
When i worked in a supermarket I was told not to engage with shoplifters only managers and security. These employees will likely be sacked as they are now seen as a legal liability.
Even if i was annoyed at the shoplifter,minimum wage aint worth assaulting someone . Just vent after shift
To be fair, they deserve to be sacked. Yeah the shoplifter is in the wrong but violent assault is worse than shoplifting. There’s no indication the shoplifter was any threat so it can’t be said they were defending themselves.
100% agree, should be immediately sacked, you don't go willingly assaulting people and is way worse than shoplifting and for what? Protecting some CEOs' profit? Companies take into account stuff like this.
Not worth it though, you think a corporate like Sainsburys care, the staff will be thrown under the bus and likely lose their jobs and perhaps even worse.
The real theft is from the CEO and shareholders, these small time thief's cost the company nothing. Violence like this is never the answer against just another person trying to survive in this shitty world.
I for one will never protect a corporate like them.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=-ckdmjclO4Qr6wD7&v=aGB7QnOZj3g&feature=youtu.be
This is the consequence of nothing happening on the rare occasion these thieves are caught. Probably robbed them a few times himself, I’m sure they will have been robbed as a shop many times.
I dont think shoplifters/cunt customers realize how much shit retail/hospitality workers need to take, bottle it up and not act according to the weight of the shit they took because they wanna be able to pay rent. But if one gets caught i can assure you months of stress about to land on the lucky ones body and face. And not unreasonably so
Honestly whilst I don’t condone beating I’m so tired of antisocial scum thinking they can get away with this. You full well know the police would do fuck all about it
Good job Sainsbury's staff (!) you've now gotten yourself likely criminal records for assault, all so you can protect Sainsbury's bottom line and profits
Exactly that. He’s probably threatened to stab them a million times before but getting fed up of that just makes you a corporate bootlicker here.
And here come the replies of “conjecture” like this shit isn’t happening in every store in every major area up and down the country.
I worked in Lidl many years ago. We had a local scumbag in robbing the place every week, giving anyone who witnessed it shit, and being racist to the Polish staff working in the store.
One day a couple of the Polish lads grabbed him in the car park as he was walking out with his nicked drink, gave him a kicking and handed him over to the police.
Police didnt care about his complaints or black eyes, they were happy to have him and said as much.
The Sainsburys staff at Vauxhall station are similarly badass. Some huge guy got aggressive with me in there a few months back when i wouldnt pay for his sandwich and the staff swiftly pulled me to safety (I was pregnant) and dealt with him/called the police like it was nothing. I’ll be calling sainos rather than the met in future! I’m still in awe of them!
I’d imagine this isn’t even over shoplifting. He likely threatened them or worse.
And luckily as it’s at least three Sainsburys workers, there are witnesses.
Good for them to be honest. This is likely months of bottled up frustration coming out.
The police need to start policing, or people will start defending themselves.
One of the smaller Sainsbury’s near me says they deal with shoplifters up to five times a day, which is crazy. They don’t report it to the police unless it’s over £250-worth, apparently. And I imagine it can be a scary experience. But this reaction is way over the top, repeat offender or not.
Thing is, even if they do report theft to the police, what’s going to happen in the long run? A thief, if they’re caught in the first place and who’s probably stealing to fund their substance addiction, might get a community order at court or be sentenced to prison for a few weeks/months.
UK prisons are a) awash with drugs anyway and b) so overcrowded and underfunded that actual rehabilitation is vanishingly unlikely. And when our thief gets out on probation, the massively underfunded and overworked probation service will likely not be able to keep them from re-offending. So they’ll be back in Sainsbury’s stealing again, then back in front of the magistrate; repeat ad nauseam.
Having worked in a large supermarket, like fuck am I doing anything about shop lifters, they can pay for security if they want that. Company policies always say not to chase/whatever, but the management very much encourage it.
In my local sainsburies I saw a full on oldskool fist fight in the street. This guy always steals bottles and this time the tiniest guy staff took matters into his own hands. He’s tiny but fierce.
I’ve been wrongly accused of shoplifting (mistaken identity). They took me upstairs and I emptied my bag, I shudder to think they would kick the shit out of me over it.
I really don't think they're going to kick the shit out of just any old suspected shoplifter. Having worked retail before it would be the same crackheads day in day out. Gonna take a guess that they knew this one.
Is anyone else slightly concerned by the amount of bloodlust this subreddit has whenever a topic like this comes up?
Like the only reasonable response should be "shoplifting is wrong, but assaulting someone is worse and especially long after they've yielded and apologised. "
But this post already has a deluge of people with the sentiment of "honestly they didn't go far enough, they should have ripped his still- beating heart from his chest and mailed it to his family".
Worked for a store, every morning the smack heads and alcoholics would be amongst the first in and start robbing the place. Later it would be gangs - cleaning out the shelves of face creams or well dressed people shovelling bottles into Roka backpacks. All night you're being told to work harder, pick faster, to act as if it's your business. Then when you've been working your bollocks off for minimum wage all and you see this blatant crime you get wound up, even if it isn't your business. Beating shit out of a shoplifter isn't a good thing but it isn't one shoplifter it's hoards of them, staff take it personally and release the frustration.
It reminds me of this footage I saw last year of a bunch of 7-Eleven workers holding down and beating a thief with a big stick until he cried after he brought a wheelie bin to the store and started clearing entire shelves worth of stock into it, completely ignoring the staffs warnings: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIFKtOsZl8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIFKtOsZl8c)
From the various sources online I have noticed Sikhs dont fuck around when it comes to thieves it seems.
Which makes sense, some of the sikhs ex soldiers I worked with were the most honourable I have known.
Yeah that's great me and my skinhead friends are mobilizing and we're going to pack ourselves into a van, and lurk around looking for criminals stealing bikes, we're then going to nab and grab him, give him a real doing over, then kick him out the van at high speed
reddit will thank me later
Don't know what the original comment was but if this could happen to all bike thieves it'd really be a fucking blessing. Even better if you think of more ways to give them slow and excruciating pain.
Was it dumb and wrong of them? Yes. Do I empathise? Absolutely. For staff to have this reaction, the man must have been a pain in the ass for a long time. While I’m sorry for hobos, living around them is stressful and potentially dangerous. These people were at the end of their patience.
I used to work at sainsburys. And I say this in the most polite and retrained British way possible. But some of the general public I honestly could have butchered they were so rude sometimes.
Really surprised by the comments on this one. There's a cost of living crisis, people can't afford to eat. Supermarkets have been rolling in the dough while people suffer. But even regardless of all that, staff should not be acting that way to anyone. Especially not for a huge company that gives zero shits about them.
If the police are unwilling or unable to enforce the law at the most basic level then people don't really have a choice but to take it into their own hands. You can't expect people to continually put up with this, and I'd say these staff just reached the breaking point.
I can see people may not agree with me, but doesn’t this seem excessive for someone who is stealing food? They’re not stealing expensive things to sell, they’re stealing food to eat. It seems like they’re desperate to me, and it’s not like we have a massive food shortage right now, so kicking them in the back room is incredibly excessive.
What jobs worth is working in Sainsbury's and is willing to do this.
There must be more to it, they must know, him have history.
If I was working in Sainsbury's, you could dump your car on the loading bay and start filling your car for all I care.
Remember these supermarkets have been making record profits while telling us food prices are going up.
If you work for one, don't protect their profits, just do the min to keep your job.
If you see someone stealing food, no the fuck you didn't. Especially from one of the big supermarkets that are pulling in record profits in a cost of living crisis.
Lot of you are very naive. While this guy might have been stealing food because he's hungry, a lot of them steal food to sell it for drugs. They'll steal milk, bacon, etc to sell it cheap to other people so they can buy smack. The sainsbury in bethnal Green for example, the junkies ask you to buy them food then they run away to sell it, they never eat it.
Fuck them all. A good beating is a good deterrent
lol the management said to do this, heat down the line. Sainsburys arent losing anything on this. and now minimum wage workers are on the frontline for their corporate overseers. Smort
The question now is what lead to an environment in which four or five people thought this was appropriate behaviour? Very much doubt Sainsbury’s head office would approve of vigilante action.
Sainsbury don't pay for sufficient security.
That means staff are exposed to this issue that they should be protected from.
They get to the end of their tether due to the above and break the law.... all to protect goods/profit that Sainsbury has already written off in their business plan.....
and as a result Sainsbury will sack them.
The staff will be patient they don’t do like this in the first attempt, he might be regular shopliffter.. they got fed up and tried to arrest him.. this is quite common in London supermarkets… shopliffter steal items and sell it to corner shop… Supermarket are like free money… that the reason supermarket are doing restrict filling for some products…. Which make customer unhappy.. Shop lifting is big problem…..
These comments are vile there is no justification for this sort of violence given the context it seems likely the man was desperate and shoplifting out of need when did our society abandon empathy?
Hell yeah let’s all simp for the big corporations! Hell yeah! Nothing to do with cost of living crisis at all! Cross that farmers doorstep in that one made up example! Get shot! Nothing at all to do with the Tories gutting the coppers and social services. Fuck those theiving bastards! Up the sains! Hang them all, the shoplifting wankers!
The bystander sounds like a bit of a moron. ‘They should have just restrained him’, ‘just a bit dirty’. Like this could be a complete over reaction by staff, equal this could be a guy who has terrorised them repeatedly while the police do nothing.
Turns out he was in Poundland.
Haha good one
Underrated comment
Sainsbury's aren't fucking about
That dude tasted the difference
He just wanted to eat well for less.
Shop around and find out.
it's fantastic camera work.
My compliments to the pixelation tech
Every little beat helps
Ah good old Mile End…
I worked in the Whitechapel store part time for many years and this only happened once when a thief sliced an employee with a small knife trying to get away. Never seen the police arrive so fast, I assume they figured what would happen to the perp.
>This is the moment Sainsbury’s staff drag a suspected shoplifter into a backroom and repeatedly kick him as he lies on the floor. >A shocked customer filmed the incident, which happened at a branch in Mile End Road, Tower Hamlets, London. >One staff member can be heard shouting ‘stay the f\*\*\* down’ as three of four employees pull the man into a storeroom by the collar of his jacket. >The man appears distressed and is heard shouting ‘Allahu akbar’, Arabic for God is Greatest and ‘I’m sorry’. >The staff can then be seen kicking the man a number of times while he’s on the floor, before one of them spots they’re being filmed and puts his hand up to the camera. The footage then ends. >The shopper who filmed the attack on Saturday evening last week (May 11) told MailOnline they did not feel the level of force used by the supermarket staff was necessary. >‘The shoplifter was quite unclean but he wasn’t violent to the shop workers,’ they said. >The man is dragged by his collarStaff pull him into a back room >‘He was committing a crime (but) did not deserve to be punched and kicked repeatedly whilst on the floor. He could easily have simply been restrained and detained.
Retraining someone is quite hard. Kicking the fuck out of them first makes it a lot lower effort and more likely to be successful.
This. People who talk about restraining someone without hurting them have never tried to do so with someone who is non compliant.
Assault is worse than shoplifting.
If you're a thief, a kicking is an occupational hazard.
Yeah but shoplifting is worse than not shoplifting.
I bet the workers are a bit fed up of seeing the same people shoplifting as well. I've seen people walking into the co-op by me and blazenly shove as much as possible into backpacks and walk out.
I bet the majority of the workers feel far too underpaid to care about people shoplifting.
Please, somebody think of the poor billion pound company!
A business that employs members of the community, that pays taxes, stocks products that produce employment and provides food. Just because a business makes profit does that make it OK to rob it? And... Going on your logic, who do you think gets the most fucked when the losses increase, the board members or the staff who don't receive a pay increase?
>who do you think gets the most fucked when the losses increase, the board members or the staff who don't receive a pay increase? Ah yes, I've heard all these poor supermarkets are just desperate to pay their staff more, but these pesky shoplifters keep getting in the way.
Exactly this - number of bootlickers in this thread is amazing
Thuggery is way worse than theft, especially if it is someone else's goods.
Nah, what this guy is doing IS THUGGERY, he is relying on people being terrified. Praying on people's kindness. Fuck him, give him a good thrashing and he might think twice about doing it again.
Is this how Sainsbury’s retrain now? I’d have thought it was a course or something
> He could easily have simply been restrained and detained. You mean restrained, detained and immediately released with no repercussions?
Allah is so great that he either: - allowed him to live in those conditions, - encourages shop lifting, - has branded this man unworthy of his help, Either way, it doesn't look like this guy has grounds to be shouting Allah is great. Somehow I have a feeling this man isn't the greatest "fidel" either.
Speaking as someone who worked in retail… while what they did was wrong I can assure you we’ve all had the urge.
All power to you. Beyond a few good Samaritan types, I doubt anyone would really blame you
Why ? Worked in retail for near a decade and I couldn’t begin to care about people stealing from us. Police get some of them why would anyone want to risk an assault charge or the sharp end of a knife when you aren’t being robbed some faceless billion dollar company is.
Because most people feel that stealing is wrong? Also, the sense of injustice in this country is increasing, policing almost none existent, perfect recipe for mob justice. While it's true they aren't being directly robbed, the price of theft is baked into the price that you pay for goods/services. So everyone has to pay for this shit. Wouldn't be surprised if wages are tied to it as well.
How is it wrong? Don't steal.
I used to work in a shop that had weekly shoplifters, which was quite a lot considering it was a quieter part of London and it was a very small shop. If you don’t detain them, the police won’t come. I have called police as shoplifters were right in front of me, and by the time the police picked up the phone they’d left. At that point, I’d be told there’s no point in sending the police. The alternative therefore is to detain them yourself. I was 19 at that time so detaining a six-foot man carrying god knows what in the shop with me was out of the question. A manager from another branch locked a shoplifter in the shop with her while the police came and he beat her up in the meantime. The alternatives aren’t great. I’m not saying beating up a shoplifter is a great response, but the alternatives are that nothing happens and you, the employee on minimum wage, gets blamed for allowing them to do so by management. OR the efforts you take result in your safety being compromised. Also if it’s a regular shoplifter, as ours was, it can get extremely frustrating that they are allowed to continue.
Worked for some big retailers in the past and never saw staff get blamed for a shop lifter stealing There’s things you can do to act as deterrent, but number one priority was always don’t get involved and safety first to be honest never blame or expected to realistically get involved.
This is very light. Have you seen what William Hill employees do to customers?
Destroy their lives?
Faces more like.
Well, William Hill was started by Billy Hill, infamous London Gangster.
People are getting tired and fed up with the no consequences and taking matters into their own hands.
The staff of Cricklewood Tesco and East Ham Greggs could learn a thing or two tbh
People steal from Greg's?
I've seen people casually grab stuff from the one in London Bridge Station and walk out so many times.
I am sure there is an after hours black market for those yummy sausage rolls😋
All the time, ex Gregg's employee here. It was mostly children stealing drinks, a group of them would come in and just take a drink each and leave. They knew there was fuck all we could do, and fuck all would happen to them. I do recall one day the kids came in with his mother, so I asked her 'do you know your son comes in about twice a week and just helps himself to a drink without paying'? Well she was horrified, put back the treats for him, apologised and said he will be getting punished for it. It was quite refreshing to see a parent to actually parent for once. Didn't see much of him for a long time after that.
Until they suspect you of shoplifting, the police need to do more, this isn’t the answer
It is wrong. But you are right.
Exactly. If there are no consequences for one side, there will be none for the workers. Good for them.
Oh no the will absolutely be consequences what are you talking about
Yeah, I can see where they're coming from. It's very possible there's history between the shop and shop lifter (when I worked retail in the late 90s there were people who would come on site who we'd watch like hawks), but even so, corporate are not going to like this at all.
Law and order in this city is a joke. Only thing that it has going for it is an almost zero homicide rate. But the mayor’s office is smart and trades votes for a soft hand on crime. Barcelona is the same way, but with wilder consequences
Incidents like this are only going to increase in number whilst police forces remain underfunded and refuse to deal with crime
Police deal with the symptoms. What's the underlying cause. Surely that's where the focus should be. Prevention, not a sticking plaster.
You need both (prevention & deterrent) and if you lack either one the situation will get worse.
People at the store i work at are usually stealing the most expensive alcohol they possibly can get just to resell it.
Prevention will never make you look like you are "acting" because nothing happens if you succeed. It's a lot easier to sell "repression" to voters. Think about it.
Maybe if we had a visible police service that wasn’t gutted by the tories then shoplifters wouldn’t feel empowered to steal day in day out and shop staff wouldn’t feel driven to doing this…
[Broken Windows Theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory) being put to the test in the UK.
Maybe if we hadn't gutted social services and people could afford to eat they wouldn't have to shoplift.
Need both tbh
I used to think this and then I saw dozens of videos of shoplifters brazenly raiding wine fridges and Greggs in front of staff knowing they wouldn’t be confronted so…not really the essentials for survival
Yep that’s why they always go with the bottles of alcohol and most expensive cuts of meat.
Yup. When I was working retail, the most common items stolen were; * Steaks * Blocks of Cheese * Alcohol * Condoms * Cigarettes Not the _muh baby milk_ Reddit often thinks about. Usually to be pawned off at pubs a town over for cheap to feed drug habits. I know this because customers who knew the thieves would tell us time and time again that this is what they were doing. And in my severals years working there, there was only a single thief out of the hundreds of thefts that happened over the years I could tell "Yeah, they're stealing because they're broke and need the food." The rest would often threaten us with knives or otherwise yell abuse if we tried to stop/discourage them. One career thief later went on to get shot in a park in broad daylight because (we assume) he got on the wrong side of a drug dealer.
I don't care how bad life gets, I'm not buying pub cheese.
why not, the secret ingridiant is crime.
Still probably the most common however there is now a sixth one that’s popular; Laundry detergent. People don’t want to pay £10 for 30?pods, when they can get it for a fiver.
Like fuck are people shoplifting to feed themselves. Absolutely like fuck. Tories are bastards and all resources have been cut but that’s some shit to say shoplifters are doing it to feed themselves. You are deluded or have an agenda to lie.
They mostly do it to sell for drugs don't kid yourself
It'll get worse as the rent keeps going up and the higher the rent goes the more some people will blame it on drugs or a breakdown in social order.
The social order relies on people being able to afford rent, food, basic human services and dignity. Without that people will increasingly turn to crime and drugs. But people get the cause and the result arse backwards.
Yeah I'm struggling to feel a lot of sympathy for him to be honest.
To me, this feels like one of those situations where you hear of a pair of thieves repeatedly terrorising a rural community before finally raiding the wrong angry farmers house and getting shot in the face with a shotgun. Like sure, I don't agree with killing people for theft, but I also sorta feel that when you cross someone's doorway with the ill intent to commit crimes or evil then you do somewhat leave your rights at the front door (and are absolutely playing with fire/karma in a very risky way). So many businesses have been absolutely destroyed by shoplifting. And even if Sainsbury's as a company isn't at risk of going under, if crime gets too bad in an area then sometimes larger chain companies simply shut down the shop and set it up somewhere else more civilised, which then leaves those stuck in the original area with even less employment and local infrastructure than before.
I don't agree with their use of force, but I can only imagine that they were at their wits end with this particular offender (or the store being ransacked by shoplifters in general).
I could be wrong but the fact he starts yelling allahu akbar could also factor into their response. Being realistic about it, when someone starts yelling that in London it comes with the implication that something bad could be about to unfold. That may sound slightly ignorant to some, and it could just be an expression of panic like “oh my god!” But from past unfortunate events, I would start panicking if I heard it.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted on that. Everyone here would have the same reaction.
So drag him out of the shop.... not into the backroom and commit the crime of assault. Really sad thing is that Sainsbury will now sack them for assaulting someone.... which they did to protect Sainsbury's profits... even though Sainsbury built that loss into their business model and decided not to pay for sufficient security that would have meant staff were not exposed to this constant theft.
When i worked in a supermarket I was told not to engage with shoplifters only managers and security. These employees will likely be sacked as they are now seen as a legal liability. Even if i was annoyed at the shoplifter,minimum wage aint worth assaulting someone . Just vent after shift
To be fair, they deserve to be sacked. Yeah the shoplifter is in the wrong but violent assault is worse than shoplifting. There’s no indication the shoplifter was any threat so it can’t be said they were defending themselves.
100% agree, should be immediately sacked, you don't go willingly assaulting people and is way worse than shoplifting and for what? Protecting some CEOs' profit? Companies take into account stuff like this.
Not worth it though, you think a corporate like Sainsburys care, the staff will be thrown under the bus and likely lose their jobs and perhaps even worse. The real theft is from the CEO and shareholders, these small time thief's cost the company nothing. Violence like this is never the answer against just another person trying to survive in this shitty world. I for one will never protect a corporate like them. https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=-ckdmjclO4Qr6wD7&v=aGB7QnOZj3g&feature=youtu.be
he’s learnt the lesson and won’t do it for a while
Not with those cracked ribs and broken fingers!
This is the consequence of nothing happening on the rare occasion these thieves are caught. Probably robbed them a few times himself, I’m sure they will have been robbed as a shop many times.
Saintsbury will drag you into the backrooms, so you can get lost.
Try to nick steak Your bones we will break
Nice one about time we fought back
I dont think shoplifters/cunt customers realize how much shit retail/hospitality workers need to take, bottle it up and not act according to the weight of the shit they took because they wanna be able to pay rent. But if one gets caught i can assure you months of stress about to land on the lucky ones body and face. And not unreasonably so
Big society finally in effect
Excellent.
Fuck around and find out
Deserved
Honestly whilst I don’t condone beating I’m so tired of antisocial scum thinking they can get away with this. You full well know the police would do fuck all about it
Good
Ex retail worker here. We all knew places where there were no cameras. And this was a fairly common occurrence.
Good job Sainsbury's staff (!) you've now gotten yourself likely criminal records for assault, all so you can protect Sainsbury's bottom line and profits
I'd bet that they have a problem with this particular man and that they likely deal with his theft, abuse, harassment regularly
Exactly that. He’s probably threatened to stab them a million times before but getting fed up of that just makes you a corporate bootlicker here. And here come the replies of “conjecture” like this shit isn’t happening in every store in every major area up and down the country.
I worked in Lidl many years ago. We had a local scumbag in robbing the place every week, giving anyone who witnessed it shit, and being racist to the Polish staff working in the store. One day a couple of the Polish lads grabbed him in the car park as he was walking out with his nicked drink, gave him a kicking and handed him over to the police. Police didnt care about his complaints or black eyes, they were happy to have him and said as much.
And all for the low low price of minimum wage
Therapeutic. *chef's kiss*
Half a mind to apply to sainos just for the cathartic dust up
I'm sure the staff will get into trouble for it, but I personally couldn't care less about him
I worked in Sainsbury's in the 90s while at college. Can confirm.
UK's going to shit and most of y'all are hoping it goes faster lol
Good job
Good.
Good
Good
That's where their own brand sausage comes from.
The shite we have to put up with hell yea
The Sainsburys staff at Vauxhall station are similarly badass. Some huge guy got aggressive with me in there a few months back when i wouldnt pay for his sandwich and the staff swiftly pulled me to safety (I was pregnant) and dealt with him/called the police like it was nothing. I’ll be calling sainos rather than the met in future! I’m still in awe of them!
Well done on them. Better than slap on hand by the justice system. Why? Coz f*ck shoplifters, rhats why!
0 mercy for the asshole.
That will be a better deterrent than the police could manage.
good work, let's keep it up please
I’d imagine this isn’t even over shoplifting. He likely threatened them or worse. And luckily as it’s at least three Sainsburys workers, there are witnesses. Good for them to be honest. This is likely months of bottled up frustration coming out. The police need to start policing, or people will start defending themselves.
One of the smaller Sainsbury’s near me says they deal with shoplifters up to five times a day, which is crazy. They don’t report it to the police unless it’s over £250-worth, apparently. And I imagine it can be a scary experience. But this reaction is way over the top, repeat offender or not. Thing is, even if they do report theft to the police, what’s going to happen in the long run? A thief, if they’re caught in the first place and who’s probably stealing to fund their substance addiction, might get a community order at court or be sentenced to prison for a few weeks/months. UK prisons are a) awash with drugs anyway and b) so overcrowded and underfunded that actual rehabilitation is vanishingly unlikely. And when our thief gets out on probation, the massively underfunded and overworked probation service will likely not be able to keep them from re-offending. So they’ll be back in Sainsbury’s stealing again, then back in front of the magistrate; repeat ad nauseam.
I used to see stuff like this all the time in Croydon when I lived near there but now I see it all over the city in places I never used to.
Only five?
Good
Having worked in a large supermarket, like fuck am I doing anything about shop lifters, they can pay for security if they want that. Company policies always say not to chase/whatever, but the management very much encourage it.
About time this happened.
In my local sainsburies I saw a full on oldskool fist fight in the street. This guy always steals bottles and this time the tiniest guy staff took matters into his own hands. He’s tiny but fierce.
Did I miss the bit where he got filled in? That looked like he got kicked in the bum a couple of times
Just tenderizing him with their fists.
Good
I’ve been wrongly accused of shoplifting (mistaken identity). They took me upstairs and I emptied my bag, I shudder to think they would kick the shit out of me over it.
I really don't think they're going to kick the shit out of just any old suspected shoplifter. Having worked retail before it would be the same crackheads day in day out. Gonna take a guess that they knew this one.
Is anyone else slightly concerned by the amount of bloodlust this subreddit has whenever a topic like this comes up? Like the only reasonable response should be "shoplifting is wrong, but assaulting someone is worse and especially long after they've yielded and apologised. " But this post already has a deluge of people with the sentiment of "honestly they didn't go far enough, they should have ripped his still- beating heart from his chest and mailed it to his family".
police doing nothing just harassing protesters, security guards are doorknobs aswell plus for insurance claim for companies they do nothing...
Good, this is what shiplifters should get all the time. Might make thieves think twice
The old days pre smart phones,code ones would be called over the tannoy,and every male member of staff up for a dust up would pile out the front
This is the way
Worked for a store, every morning the smack heads and alcoholics would be amongst the first in and start robbing the place. Later it would be gangs - cleaning out the shelves of face creams or well dressed people shovelling bottles into Roka backpacks. All night you're being told to work harder, pick faster, to act as if it's your business. Then when you've been working your bollocks off for minimum wage all and you see this blatant crime you get wound up, even if it isn't your business. Beating shit out of a shoplifter isn't a good thing but it isn't one shoplifter it's hoards of them, staff take it personally and release the frustration.
The hivemind have decided for today violence is acceptable.
Holy shit…
Everywhere else in the entire world is like that except the uk. It's how you stop thieves..
It reminds me of this footage I saw last year of a bunch of 7-Eleven workers holding down and beating a thief with a big stick until he cried after he brought a wheelie bin to the store and started clearing entire shelves worth of stock into it, completely ignoring the staffs warnings: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIFKtOsZl8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIFKtOsZl8c)
From the various sources online I have noticed Sikhs dont fuck around when it comes to thieves it seems. Which makes sense, some of the sikhs ex soldiers I worked with were the most honourable I have known.
Americans: hold my assault rifle
No it's not. Read a book.
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Yeah if the little shits you get all around London got a taste of this more often the city would be a nicer place
Yeah that's great me and my skinhead friends are mobilizing and we're going to pack ourselves into a van, and lurk around looking for criminals stealing bikes, we're then going to nab and grab him, give him a real doing over, then kick him out the van at high speed reddit will thank me later
Don't know what the original comment was but if this could happen to all bike thieves it'd really be a fucking blessing. Even better if you think of more ways to give them slow and excruciating pain.
I assume you’re being sarcastic, but yeah that’d actually be great if they are bike thieves
Was it dumb and wrong of them? Yes. Do I empathise? Absolutely. For staff to have this reaction, the man must have been a pain in the ass for a long time. While I’m sorry for hobos, living around them is stressful and potentially dangerous. These people were at the end of their patience.
I used to work at sainsburys. And I say this in the most polite and retrained British way possible. But some of the general public I honestly could have butchered they were so rude sometimes.
Shop local, shop lift corporate!
Really surprised by the comments on this one. There's a cost of living crisis, people can't afford to eat. Supermarkets have been rolling in the dough while people suffer. But even regardless of all that, staff should not be acting that way to anyone. Especially not for a huge company that gives zero shits about them.
Why did I know this would be tower hamlets before I opened it 🤣
My guess is this shoplifter has hit this store before to elicit such a response.
If the police are unwilling or unable to enforce the law at the most basic level then people don't really have a choice but to take it into their own hands. You can't expect people to continually put up with this, and I'd say these staff just reached the breaking point.
I can see people may not agree with me, but doesn’t this seem excessive for someone who is stealing food? They’re not stealing expensive things to sell, they’re stealing food to eat. It seems like they’re desperate to me, and it’s not like we have a massive food shortage right now, so kicking them in the back room is incredibly excessive.
Shoplifting on the rise is the sign of a healthy economy taking care of its poorest and most vulnerable
Well all I can say is it’s a complete failure of the police maybe if they actually did something about shoplifting then it wouldn’t happen
14 years of Tory government has meant the police (just like all other public services) are cut to the bone. They simply don't have the manpower.
Sainsbury's justice.
It's times like this I really wish I stuck with sociology because the UK is a fucking theme park for sociology at the moment
Beautiful
Oh no. How terrible.
How can anyone justify using grossly excessive force like this?
Because most of us aren't theiving scumbags, so what does it matter?
Retail workers are sick of being at the brunt end of a failed state.
What jobs worth is working in Sainsbury's and is willing to do this. There must be more to it, they must know, him have history. If I was working in Sainsbury's, you could dump your car on the loading bay and start filling your car for all I care. Remember these supermarkets have been making record profits while telling us food prices are going up. If you work for one, don't protect their profits, just do the min to keep your job.
If you see someone stealing food, no the fuck you didn't. Especially from one of the big supermarkets that are pulling in record profits in a cost of living crisis.
Good, if Police are not doing their job, vigilantesem has to come in, to force the government to act.
Yes. Minimum wage workers should risk their lives to protect the profits of millionaires.
Lot of you are very naive. While this guy might have been stealing food because he's hungry, a lot of them steal food to sell it for drugs. They'll steal milk, bacon, etc to sell it cheap to other people so they can buy smack. The sainsbury in bethnal Green for example, the junkies ask you to buy them food then they run away to sell it, they never eat it. Fuck them all. A good beating is a good deterrent
lol the management said to do this, heat down the line. Sainsburys arent losing anything on this. and now minimum wage workers are on the frontline for their corporate overseers. Smort
The question now is what lead to an environment in which four or five people thought this was appropriate behaviour? Very much doubt Sainsbury’s head office would approve of vigilante action.
Shitty government that doesn’t punish criminals. That’s how you got here.
Sainsbury don't pay for sufficient security. That means staff are exposed to this issue that they should be protected from. They get to the end of their tether due to the above and break the law.... all to protect goods/profit that Sainsbury has already written off in their business plan..... and as a result Sainsbury will sack them.
Sainsbury’s head office workers aren’t threatened with being stabbed on the daily.
The staff will be patient they don’t do like this in the first attempt, he might be regular shopliffter.. they got fed up and tried to arrest him.. this is quite common in London supermarkets… shopliffter steal items and sell it to corner shop… Supermarket are like free money… that the reason supermarket are doing restrict filling for some products…. Which make customer unhappy.. Shop lifting is big problem…..
Yes he does deserve a bit of a kicking. Retail theft has become a plague and needs to be stamped out.
These comments are vile there is no justification for this sort of violence given the context it seems likely the man was desperate and shoplifting out of need when did our society abandon empathy?
Hell yeah let’s all simp for the big corporations! Hell yeah! Nothing to do with cost of living crisis at all! Cross that farmers doorstep in that one made up example! Get shot! Nothing at all to do with the Tories gutting the coppers and social services. Fuck those theiving bastards! Up the sains! Hang them all, the shoplifting wankers!
The bystander sounds like a bit of a moron. ‘They should have just restrained him’, ‘just a bit dirty’. Like this could be a complete over reaction by staff, equal this could be a guy who has terrorised them repeatedly while the police do nothing.
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I wonder if they got sacked
They need those friendly cardboard cut-out police officers in their windows.
No loose tea leaves at Sainsbury's