WHAT turns people into thieves and shoplifters? According to a report by the British Retail Consortium, there were 5.5million known cases of shoplifting last year, some of them violent.
We constantly hear about lawless London, where thieves snatch your phone as you are walking along with it clamped to your ear, and then cycle off before you can say ‘Stop thief!’ That is bad enough, but a couple of weeks ago I was robbed of my wallet and its contents as I sat in an upmarket café in central London waiting for a friend.
The café is at Foyles in Charing Cross Road, a haunt of book lovers and, one might say, middle-class people. There are, admittedly, notices all around the café saying that thieves operate in the area and to be careful with your belongings.
Usually I am, but when my friend WhatsApped to say she was sitting at another table, I temporarily forgot that my handbag was underneath my own table while I went to find her. I was gone four minutes at most but it was enough for the thief to dive into my handbag and fish out my wallet, a large leather case that was actually a clutch bag and big enough to have just about my whole life inside it.
As we got up to go I retrieved my handbag, only to find to my horror that the wallet was missing. I couldn’t believe it at first, but it was true. We called the Foyles manager and he gave us a quiet room to cancel the cards and notify the police. Belatedly, we went to the book launch that was the reason for our presence, but of course a fun evening was ruined.
Meanwhile I was cast adrift in rainy London. There was no way I could get home to Oxford that night as I had no money, my house keys were in the wallet and so was my bus pass and return ticket. I was able to stay the night with my son Tom and his partner, and the friend I was with lent me £40 to tide me over.
The next day I got home to Oxford and went to the bank to order new cards, get cash out and check what purchases had been made before I was able to cancel the cards. There were quite a few. Some were declined after the cards were cancelled but the thief had managed to spend £100 in Boots and smaller amounts in other shops. There was a £36 purchase from Tesco, but all attempts to hire an e-bike were thwarted.
I then had to get new keys cut and decided to change the locks. It was fortunate that I had a spare set of keys in a key box in the porch of my building, otherwise how would I have got in? But there was no way I could have fumbled around in the dark to access the code and unlock the key box in the middle of the night. In any case I was in panic mode and unable to think straight.
The chances of the thief noting my address on my driving licence – also stolen – and finding my house were remote but I was taking no chances. Before the new cards arrived I had no choice but to buy everything with cash. As I did not want to carry large amounts I had to keep going to the bank to get money out. And with so many places announcing proudly that they are cashless, there are ever fewer where you can spend actual readies. Here, perhaps I can enter a heartfelt plea to keep cash alive as it is in danger of disappearing and if your cards are lost or stolen, you are stranded.
I am glad to report that all the money spent on the stolen cards was refunded by the banks, but the trauma of being robbed when sitting innocently in a café will stay with me for a long time. Plus the inconvenience. I still have to order a new driving licence and railcard. All this takes time, effort and money which benefits the thief not at all.
So, I ask again: what makes somebody a thief, taking something that is not theirs? What sort of personality rifles a stranger’s handbag in a busy café in search of a wallet, a phone or anything else which might be of value? It was lucky that I had my phone in my hand when I went to look for my friend: if that had gone, I don’t know what I would have done.
Nobody in Foyles looked like an obvious thief but I have since learned that smartly dressed robbers are haunting posh cafés in central London and finding rich pickings. One friend had a similar experience in Fortnum & Mason.
Do these people have no conscience, no heart? It appears not. There is no way that I could steal something that was not rightfully mine. Is it the way I was brought up? My churchgoing childhood and youth that instilled right and wrong into me? Or just that my moral sense would always kick in and not allow me to take pleasure in ill-gotten goods?
Also, how much was it my own fault that the wallet was stolen? It is true that I left my handbag unguarded for those crucial minutes but nobody in the café saw or suspected a thing. The CCTV picked up nothing, which perhaps goes to show how professional these robbers are. I suspect that my thief was part of an organised gang as it was amazing how quickly the cards were used in various shops.
If shoplifting and stealing phones and wallets has become so rife, what does it say about our present society? And who are these thieves who haunt cafés in London – and maybe other cities – where middle-class and well-heeled customers are stopping off to meet a friend or to have a coffee and a cake?
Theft, it seems, has become a normalised part of society, and the sad thing is that the more that shops, cafés and other places invest in security staff, CCTV and body-worn cameras, the worse the problem is getting.
This is the first time this has happened to me and no physical violence was involved, but stealing someone’s purse is a kind of violence in itself. I shall have to be more careful in future, but it’s difficult to know how careful you have to be to outwit these crafty criminals. Staying at home and never going out cannot be the answer.
Regretfully, it will be a long time before I feel confident to venture into Foyles café again.
