This is the shocking moment two brazen thieves walked out of a Waitrose store in London with handfuls of steak and salmon while staff did nothing – as the capital’s crime epidemic continues.
Security officers and store workers watched on – forbidden from doing anything by company policy – as their shelves were raided on Thursday evening.
Footage shows the two thieves strolling out of the Waitrose store in Notting Hill Gate, London, with the stolen goods at around 8.30pm before casually cycling off.
It is just the latest example of shoplifters operating unhindered in the capital, with growing complaints that Sadiq Khan has allowed the city’s crime problem to spiral out of control.
Other shoppers said they stole ‘handfuls of steak, chicken and salmon fillets’.
One onlooker, Jack Barham, described the moment, saying that the two shoplifters had ‘absolutely zero panic on their faces’.
He recalled: ‘They just walked in and walked out. Everyone just stood there.
‘I asked the manager on duty what can he do about it, and he said they can not intervene or touch them, in case of a knife, which makes sense.
‘But the absurd thing he told me was that the security guards outside can’t do anything either.
‘What’s the point in them? They are essentially window dressing. This for me was the most shocking thing.’
A Waitrose spokesperson said: ‘Safety is our top priority, and our trained Partners and guards make appropriate interventions when safe to do so.’
Shoplifting has become an increasing nightmare for High Street shops.
Since the pandemic, the Russia Ukraine conflict and soaring inflation, theft has soared in the UK, recently hitting the highest level ever seen.
A huge 516,971 offences were logged by police forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023.
The figure is the highest since current police records began 22 years ago in 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Norman Brennan, a former police detective in London, said earlier this year that terrified shop staff had been left helpless to prevent crooks from brazenly ransacking their businesses.
The 65-year-old – who spent 31 years as a cop and was once stabbed in the chest by an armed burglar – said crippling cuts to policing, which have seen thousands of officers lost in recent years, had left forces stretched too thinly.
‘Britain’s criminal justice system and policing is on life-support,’ he warned. ‘Britain is in anarchy and it’s out of control. Police can’t control it. They don’t have the staff to turn up.
‘There isn’t a village, town or city in Britain that is not affected by shoplifting… It’s a free for all. Gangs are lawless.’
It comes as alarming figures showed retail crime is spiralling out of control as criminals besiege shops, with thefts having soared a staggering 22 per cent in 2023-24 across England and Wales.
Lawless thugs – many not even bothering to cover their faces – sweep entire shelves of items into their rucksacks before blustering past powerless security staff, seemingly unafraid of being punished.
Crooks are becoming even more daring in their bids to ransack shops, with CCTV showing them clambering through roofs or wearing specially modified coats to pile hundreds of pounds of stolen good into.
Some gangs even loot stores en masse, dumping vast quantities of booze and expensive meats into trolleys before fleeing – with few facing any real punishment.
The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) crime survey found that just two per cent of offences reported to police resulted in a conviction.
The crisis is most acute in London, where the capital has recorded a shocking 50 per cent boom in shoplifting, up from 53,202 in 2023 to 80,041 last year.
About 55,000 crimes are reported every day nationwide – with 38 stores targeted every second, BRC data has revealed.
Meanwhile, workers are increasingly being attacked by yobs, with stats showing 45,000 violent incidents took place during the last year – more than 124 a day.
