A prolific shoplifter who got a Morrisons store manager sacked after 29 years of loyal service was later jailed over a string of offences.
Sean Egan, 46, revealed how the ‘abusive’ and ‘prolific’ thief who spat at him in a West Midlands store has since been jailed for 46 weeks over multiple crimes.
Mr Egan was initially following company protocol with a calm approach to the thief in his store in Aldridge, near Walsall in the West Midlands, last December.
However, when the shoplifter became ‘aggressive’ and started spitting at him, the father from Wolverhampton ‘reacted not as a store manager, but as a human being’.
He flung his arm back and grabbed the thief’s arm to stop him reaching into his bag, leading to an altercation.
The thinking behind his actions, he said, was that he needed to ‘stop this guy’, adding: ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do, not only to me, but anybody else.’
He also told how he felt pressure not to lose company money and to protect the store’s products.
Mr Egan said he called the police to report the theft but was still investigated by the company he had ‘done everything he could for’.
But the loyal employee, who had worked for Morrisons since he was 17, was sacked at a disciplinary hearing for not following the company’s deter-and-not-detain policy.
Sean Egan, 46, has worked his entire life at Morrisons but was fired after tackling a shoplifter
Sean Egan, who lives in Wolverhampton with his family, takes part in charitable work for a children’s hospital
Now in a lengthy post on LinkedIn, Mr Egan said: ‘The individual involved has since been sentenced to 46 weeks in prison for multiple offences. But the reality is, I’m still living the consequences every single day.’
He said: ‘For the past 4.5 months, I’ve been out of work. I wasn’t able to buy my children Christmas presents. I’ve struggled to keep up with bills. I’ve been dealing with crippling anxiety and a real sense of worthlessness.’
When others reached out to him with similar stories, the former Morrisons employee made it his mission to ‘make sure those voices are heard’ and wants to ‘be open about what happened’ during the standalone incident.
Mr Egan said: ‘Like many stores, we were dealing with frequent shoplifting, especially during peak Christmas period.
‘On this occasion, the individual was a well-known, prolific offender in the area.
‘I followed company policy, approached calmly, offered help, and then escorted him from the store when needed.
‘But as we neared the exit, I was spat at.
‘In that moment, I reacted. Not as a manager. As a human being.
‘That split second changed everything.’
Mr Egan previously told the BBC it was his ‘instant reaction’ to fling his arm back when the shoplifter became ‘aggressive’ and started spitting at him.
The fallout of the incident saw the father, who had transformed numerous underperforming stores into some of the most profitable branches in the West Midlands, left penniless just three weeks before Christmas.
‘I don’t think people understand what this really does to someone,’ he said ‘Just 3 weeks before Christmas… I was asking myself one question… How am I going to give my kids the Christmas they deserve?
‘I joined Morrisons at 17. It wasn’t just a job. It was my identity. My life. My purpose. 29 years of loyalty. And now… it’s gone.
‘Not only have I lost my career, I’ve never felt so unheard, unseen, and disposable in my entire life.’
Mr Egan previously told the BBC it was his ‘instant reaction’ to fling his arm back when the shoplifter became ‘aggressive’ and started spitting at him
He said what ‘hurts the most’ is that three decades of his life were ‘gone in a moment’.
The reason for his emotional social media post was to give others understanding of the ‘real human impact behind decisions like this’.
Mr Egan said he was investigated by Morrisons and dragged through a disciplinary which he appealed the results of to no avail.
‘But what I didn’t feel, at any stage, was support. I was even told early on, “you will probably lose your job for this”. And that was it,’ he wrote.
For the past four-and-a-half months, he has been out of work, struggling to keep up with his bills and suffering from ‘crippling anxiety and a real sense of worthlessness’.
Even the ‘chance to rebuild’ he was given by way of a job offer to be a store manager for Aldi was ripped away due to a ‘discrepancy’ with the end date of his employment with Morrisons.
‘Since then, I’ve been left asking myself… what now? Because I am not the sum of one moment,’ he penned in his impassioned post.
Pitching himself as a store manager ‘who has led and transformed multiple stores’ and ‘a leader who has developed teams and future managers’, Mr Egan said he would appreciate help finding a new job in the same role elsewhere.
‘Because sometimes, all someone needs… is one opportunity to rebuild,’ he said, adding: ‘This has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to share. Thank you to anyone taking the time to read it.’
A Morrisons spokesman yesterday said: ‘We are continuing to take wide ranging action to address the threat of shoplifting or violence in our stores.
‘The health and safety of all colleagues and customers is of paramount importance to Morrisons. We have very clear guidance, procedures and controls in place to protect our colleagues and customers from the risk of harm, which must be strictly followed.
‘These include detailed procedures for handling shoplifting incidents, which are in place to protect both the colleague involved and surrounding colleagues and customers, and which seek to de-escalate and calmly control the situation. We will not ask colleagues to put themselves at risk.
‘As a responsible employer, our focus is entirely on taking the correct action to ensure health and safety is maintained at all times.’
It comes after Waitrose shop assistant Walker Smith, who had been employed by the chain for 17 years, revealed earlier this month that he was sacked for tackling an Easter egg thief.
Mr Smith was fired days after confronting a ‘repeat offender’ who had filled a bag with eggs at the branch in Clapham Junction, South West London.
The 54-year-old grabbed the bag from the thief, sparking a tug-of-war and the £13 bag of Lindt eggs to spill on to the floor.
Waitrose has a strict policy that staff should not confront shoplifters and Mr Smith was sacked a few days later.
Waitrose defended its decision, claiming there is a ‘serious danger to life’ in tackling thieves and its staff policies must be ‘strictly followed’ – but the chain faced a furious backlash over the decision.
Last week, a study revealed shoplifting offences reported to police in England and Wales have more than doubled in five years – but just one in five are resulting in a charge.
Total thefts rose by 133 per cent from 228,128 in 2020/21 to 530,457 in 2024/25, according to House of Commons Library data analysed by the Liberal Democrats .
But just 19.8 per cent of offences in 2024/25 resulted in a charge being made – with the worst rate coming from the Metropolitan Police, which was only 6.5 per cent.
Chief Inspector Rav Pathania, the Met Police’s lead for tackling retail crime, insisted last week that shoplifters are escaping justice because storekeepers are refusing to hand over CCTV .
He claimed that if retail managers released more footage of offences then officers would be able to clamp down on crime – saying that the force never got CCTV for 80 per cent of crimes last year.
Mr Pathania added that in cases where shopkeepers did pass on footage, police could identify 80 per cent of suspects by running the images through databases of known offenders.
Meanwhile the Iceland executive chairman claimed earlier this month that security guards in shops should carry pepper spray and truncheons to tackle retail crime.
Lord Walker of Broxton, who is also the Government’s cost-of-living tsar, said that ‘just one incident of violence against my staff is too many’ as he pointed to the example of armed Spanish security guards, saying they ‘don’t mess about’.
It comes after Marks and Spencer’s retail director, Thinus Keeve, claimed its customer-facing staff were being subjected to violence and abuse every day, and called for the Government and London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan to crack down on crime.
Mr Keeve spoke out after unrest involving one of the retail giant’s stores in Clapham, which saw hundreds of youths swarm high street shops as part of an online trend.
Meanwhile Costa Coffee has hired security guards at around ten stores facing repeated incidents of shoplifting in a bid to prevent its food and drinks being stolen.
A survey of 1,000 customer-facing workers in the UK by the Institute of Customer Service found around 43 per cent of frontline staff had experienced hostility or abuse from customers in the past six months, up from 36 per cent the previous year.
The Crime and Policing Bill, once passed, will make the assault of a retail worker an offence.
The Bill has cleared both the Commons and Lords, but is going through a ‘tidying up process’ between the two Houses of Parliament, which must agree on a final draft for the statute books. It returned to the Lords for further consideration today.
The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures available show shoplifting offences increased in England and Wales in the year to September, but remained slightly below record levels seen in the 12 months to March 2025.
There were 519,381 shoplifting offences in the year to September 2025, up 5 per cent from 492,660 the previous year. A total of 530,439 offences were recorded in the year to March 2025.
