An afternoon of relative calm is shattered as security guards at West Orchards Shopping Centre rush to deal with reports of two ‘kamikaze’ shoplifters caught within seconds of each other.
After we descend several levels, one of the suspected thieves appears pale and subdued as he stares into the distance a few paces from his intended spoils — a hand basket full of Lurpak butter.
Outside, an aggressive man with a bag full of stolen Cathedral City Cheddar is being apprehended and brought back to a storage area in an Iceland store at the bustling mall in Coventry.
He swears at the five security guards present and at several points appears about to flex his arms upwards before three members of the team eventually pin him to the floor, awaiting police.
Two of the black jackets have arrived fresh from talking to a woman in a mental health crisis who had raised concern in toilets a few levels above.
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Even with the reports of a retail crime epidemic, it’s shocking to watch the scene unfold as the man protests on the ground.
Having already told the mall guards to ‘shut the f*** up’, he says ‘I can’t control myself’ as they restrain him on the floor while Iceland’s in-store security officer keeps a close watch.
The team members that Metro speaks to cut straight to the point.
This is the frontline of a national wave of retail crime — and some of the perpetrators are violent and desperate.
In a management suite on the top level of the busy mall, senior asset manager Andy Talbot says: ‘The experience with retail crime is horrendous.
‘It’s a constant battle for the team. We as a business spend over half a million pounds a year on security staff.
‘That half a million pounds is paid for by the retailers and adds to our costs. It’s a constant battle for them to keep on top of shoplifting.’
At the heart of the operation is a control room with 130 cameras, monitoring every level of the mall, which is packed with Friday visitors.
They include ANPR and analytical capabilities, with the latter able to identify unusual behaviour among people walking in the precinct.
The guards also have access to internal and retail link radios, bodyworn cameras and stab-proof vests and gloves.
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‘You have everything from children stealing sweets to shoplifters targeting more expensive items such as packs of cheese, ham and beef,’ Andy says.
‘There are members of the older generation stealing to eat because of the current economic climate, there are people who are stealing to order, and people stealing to feed a habit.
‘Our team is up against it, they are highly trained, but it’s a tough job.’
A common theme across shopping centres nationally is a lack of police resources to deal with offenders who have been caught, meaning the same faces return time and again.
The mall and individual stores can issue banning orders of up to a lifetime but the guards tell Metro that many of the worst culprits will return.
‘The police are stretched and the national government has a lot to answer for,’ Andy says. ‘We all know there are problems with the economy and national spending is out of kilter, but there’s a lack of resources.
‘We report crimes and we may get a crime reference number that’s generally as far as it goes. We rarely have the police come out unless it’s a very serious incident.’
‘I worked in WH Smith, shoplifters were blatant’
I had not long turned 17 when I got my first job working at WH Smith in West Orchards Shopping Centre, writes Molly Lee.
As a shy young woman who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, there were instances where I felt uncomfortable.
Despite the security procedures in place — recording devices round our necks, shopping centre security guards doing regular walk throughs and radios by our tills — there were times I was worried.
In the situations at the beginning of my part-time career as a sales assistant, I don’t think my shy and quiet nature helped.
Although it often came across as me being friendly and gentle, it also came across as a weakness to those who didn’t come into the store for the best of reasons.
It always amazed me how blatant shoplifters would be – they didn’t seem to care about being right under CCTV or in front of you.
If they wanted to nick a handful of chocolate bars as you stood and watched, they would. But they would also shout abuse at you when you did your job and alerted security.
In one incident, a shoplifter obviously stole boxes of Ferrero Rochers while I was at the till so, being a good employee, I radioed security to which he threw the chocolates at me as he ran down a nearby alleyway. I suppose I could’ve had worse thrown at me.
Although it can be intimidating when they react aggressively, I always found it somewhat amusing when they were caught by security.
There is this adrenaline rush you get even though you aren’t the one chasing after the criminal and then there is the satisfaction of having the stolen goods returned.
Another issue that I noticed whilst working in retail was the youth in the area, especially after school and on weekends.
There were numerous times I found myself asking youths – in their adidas tracksuits with bum bags and their bikes – to leave the store.
Whether it was throwing sticky toy balls at the staircase’s ceiling, waiting for them to drop on unknowing customers or just messing up displays, youths were often causing trouble.
It often made me feel like a 17-year-old in a grandma’s body telling them to go home and do their homework.
Despite the rise in retail crime that I was very much aware of, I found myself returning to work during my university holidays.
For every one aggressive shoplifter, there were a handful of kind customers, which is what made the job more bearable.
Security manager Lewis Greaves got first-hand experience of the dangers that come with the frontline job when he was slashed in the arm as he broke up a gang fight several years back.
‘There were about 10 to 20 teenagers who couldn’t have been older than 14 or 15,’ he says. ‘Luckily enough we managed to get the majority of it outside, but there was a brief scuffle that ensued as we split them up.
‘We took a couple of them to the ground to restrain them and I realised afterwards that one of them had slashed my arm.
‘By that time they’d made good their escape.’
Lewis, who was then a security officer, needed stitches and a tetanus jab at hospital, but hasn’t let it deter him from patrolling the centre, where he is one of a total team of around 13.
‘My experiences have ranged from shoplifting to break-ins out of hours,’ he says. ‘We get everything from small value thefts to large-scale thefts where it’s hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of items in one go.
‘Then we’ve got shoplifters who give up quite easily and others who want to fight and get away, whether it’s with their body or with weapons, such as needles or knives or anything they can get their hands on.’
One of the calls Lewis receives takes him and fellow security officer Saf Choudhry to the toilets, where a woman is experiencing a mental health crisis. They spend time talking her round to the point where she can leave the mall on her own. The scenario is far from unusual.
Then it’s all systems go as the team responds to the two suspects who have been caught at Iceland, one of the mall’s most targeted shops along with M&S, One Beyond and British Heart Foundation.
While the alleged butter thief is placid, the other appears ready to lash out after already allegedly pushing the budget store’s in-house guard.
Although they are both accused of committing blatant theft — known as ‘kamikaze’ shoplifting — it’s not clear if they know each other.
On this occasion, the police are quick to respond, arresting both men and placing them in handcuffs amid the shelves full of Pot Noodles, Haribos and other goods waiting to be wheeled out into the store.
On one of the shelves is the 11 packs of cheddar the aggressive suspect, previously known as a beggar, had tried to steal.
Before being restrained he slouches on a trolley and tells one of the guards to ‘shut the f**** up.’ Shortly after, he has to be pinned into place by the team, with the in-house guard keeping watch
Lewis tries to reason with him: ‘You have recently started shoplifting.
‘You must realise shoplifting has consequences?’
Exhausting work and long hours haven’t put Lewis off the job.
‘It sounds quite soppy if you like but like anyone else who does this job, we want to make a difference,’ he says as we walk outside.
‘This is our city that we live in, we shop here and come into the town, we want to make it a better place for people.
‘We know that people don’t like coming into town, not just in Coventry but everywhere, and we want to make that better.’
The team spoke a few days before calls were made by the Federation of Independent Retailers for government grants to boost security measures at smaller stores after another rise in shoplifting.
Police in England and Wales recorded a total of 529,994 cases of shoplifting in the year ending June 2025, an increase of 13 per cent, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
The Federation’s national president Hetal Patel said: ‘We hope that the latest disturbing statistics encourage the government to provide the financial help that is urgently needed to tackle the surge in retail crime.’
The government has launched a Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy alongside police, retailers and industry aimed at using shared data to catch all levels of perpetrators, from organised gangs to opportunists.
West Midlands Police confirmed that two men were arrested on suspicion of theft in connection with the Iceland incidents.
Do you have a story you would like to share? Contact josh.layton@metro.co.uk