BRASH AND CARRY!

Amid an epidemic of shoplifting, Investigations Editor ZAK GARNER-PURKIS visits the front line with the undercover detectives tackling the crimewave

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THE SHOPLIFTER swaggers straight through the automatic doors towards the meat section of the Bannerbrook Spar convenience store. After a quick glance around, he whips open the fridge, plunges his hands inside and stuffs two packs of sausages into his hoodie.

The thief doesn’t realise it yet, but his decision to target the new-build row of shops on the outskirts of Coventry is a mistake. Hunched over a CCTV monitor in the backroom of the convenience store is a 6ft 6in store detective, built like a rugby player, from private security firm H&T Experts Ltd.

He has eyeballed the entire scene and is ready to act. As the shoplifter twists on his heel to make a dash for the exit, rather than paying at the till, the detective pulls the mic hidden in his collar towards his mouth and shouts the codeword: “Christmas! Christmas!”

He jumps out of his seat and goes crashing out through the stockroom.

Spar staff freeze as he barrels through the store and out the door where his two equally enormous undercover colleagues are in the process of tackling the shoplifter.

The thief was halfway into his car when the H&T Experts team apprehended him. But there’s a nasty surprise in the passenger seat.

“Dog, dog!” shouts another raspy-voiced store detective as a Staffordshire bull terrier snarls and snaps.

They are lucky the animal has its owner between them, otherwise the Staffy might have sunk its sharp teeth into an arm or leg.

Not that these seasoned veterans of Britain’s shoplifting epidemic are fazed.

In some respects, a dog attack is easier to handle than a pointed knife or a heroin addict’s needle, which the security guards have faced in the past.