'I stole at £2.8m at one chain': Confessions of shoplifters who say prison isn't the answer

Chris Downes’s piercing blue eyes stare out from the mugshot on a Cheshire Police news release.

He “has been causing problems within this town through shoplifting for over two decades”, it reads.

It announces a criminal behaviour order banning the 60-year-old from entering any part of his local town centre of Macclesfield and every Co-op store in Cheshire.

“I feel like I’ve been punished twice,” Chris says, once for the original offence and again with the banning order. It causes inconvenience with things like doctor’s appointments and shopping for him and his elderly mother.

Chris is one of those people we rarely hear from in all the talk about the explosion in shoplifting in Britain. He is one of that legion of shoplifters and agreed to speak to Sky News.

“Why did I do it? I did it because of a drug problem. I had no option,” he says.

“I know it’s wrong but it wasn’t hurting any individual as I see it. I wasn’t taking old ladies’ handbags, I’m not saying shoplifting is right but needs must I suppose.”

Addiction issues are a familiar feature of shoplifters’ stories. We have spoken to a number who, almost word for word, say the same as Chris Downes. They want things to be different, they say, but cannot break the cycle.

Chris describes the sensation of needing a hit as being “peeled alive” where even “your hair hurts”. Relieving that need for a hit is worth paying any price, he says. “It is an overwhelming urge.”

Something else all shoplifters seem to say is that they never target small, independent shops but focus on the big high street names, as if their losses are somehow less important.

But there are other stories. “You’d be surprised who shoplifts,” says Chris. “Being a shoplifter you notice people and the signs more than security guards do and while they’re concentrating on me you’ll see a little old lady with a trolley lined with foil inside and putting bottles of whisky in. I’ve seen it very often.”

Even shoplifters are feeling the pinch too. Chris says £100 worth of stolen goods would once net £50, now he says he’s lucky to make £20.

The responsibility of caring for his mother has given Chris an impetus to clean up his act. His career as a cabinet maker and ceramicist are just some of what has become collateral damage to 40 years of addiction.

One man who has managed to break that cycle is Cullan Mais. As we walk through a suburban shopping street in Cardiff, he ticks off a list of what he could steal and from where during his very lucrative shoplifting career. He explains in detail the modus operandi of the seasoned thief.

He shares photos of his journey: caught on a security camera going into a shop to steal, his police mugshot, a harrowing image of him clucking – that is going cold turkey on a relative’s sofa, his shirtless body marked with the scars of a fierce battle with drugs.

Bearded and healthier-looking in smart sports casualwear, he now works trying to help others make the same journey out of addiction. He remembers it well, not least the amount of money he made.

“Maximum I’ve made – two or three thousand in a day. I stole millions,” he says. “When the one shopping chain caught me, they valued all the things I stole at £2.8m – and that’s just the one shopping chain.

“Of course, I never made millions, that was just the retail price.”

Addiction again was the driving force.

“Every day, without fail, you’re going to make the money you need to make,” he says. “As a drug addict you’re not going home until you’ve made what you need to make to make sure you’re okay.

“And, you know, I think as the years went on, I got greedier and greedier.”

Even though those days are long gone, he says, like any addict, the feeling never truly goes away.

“Shoplifting to me was an addiction in itself,” he says. “It was a buzz and I loved it. Even when I kicked my addiction, it was very hard not to think about it.

“Last Christmas I was working away and the Christmas songs came on the radio and it triggered me because it reminded me of going out at Christmas time to get money.”

He says rehabilitation rather than prison is the answer. “Prison just made me a better criminal.”

But for the police and courts, trying to tackle a problem that costs business millions every year, prison is often the only option.

Assistant Chief Constable Alex Goss, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for shoplifting, said: “We know retail crime has a significant impact on victims which is why we are committed to doing all we can to reduce thefts and pursue offenders, especially those prolific and habitual offenders, who cause misery within the community.”