Brazen thieves have raided a Holland & Barrett store in east London for weight loss supplements – as helpless staff watched on.
The pair of hooded thugs pulled multivitamin pills and powders worth an estimated £700 from the shelves of the store on Whitechapel Road earlier this week.
Raking through shelves marked ‘weight management’ and ‘vitamins and supplements’, the criminals calmly pulled what they liked from the shelves as staff watched on.
Two shop workers appeared to have body-worn cameras on their chests capturing the incident as it took place – but did not intervene.
The clip was first shared on TikTok earlier this week before it was re-uploaded to X this morning.
The narration on the video states: ‘Two men entered Holland & Barrett and began to steal – unfortunately, nobody was able to intervene.
‘These two men stole goods valued at over £700 and left the store as if they had made a legitimate purchase.’
Holland & Barrett rolled out body-worn cameras to staff in 80 of its 700 stores across the UK because they were, a statement from the company said, ‘proven to be effective at de-escalating and deterring shoplifting’.
But the cowardly thugs continued undeterred – but could not even look staff in the eye as they filled their backpacks, only making for the door after an in-store alarm was activated.
With a hoodie covering his face and a beanie hat over his eyes, one of the robbers stared dead ahead as he calmly strolled past staff and out the door onto the busy Whitechapel high street.
Holland & Barrett said last year it had rolled out new crime reporting software to staff to allow them to quickly identify and report theft to police, logging over 8,000 incidents of theft and violence against staff in a matter of months.
More than 600 known repeat offenders had been identified with the new system, the health chain claimed.
has contacted Holland & Barrett for comment.
Video footage of blank-faced shoplifters shamelessly raiding shelves in full view of staff, CCTV and customers filming on their phones has spread like wildfire on social media in recent months
Retail staff are generally discouraged from engaging with shoplifters to avoid getting hurt, according to British Retail Consortium boss Helen Dickinson.
When they do intervene, guards are often pelted with abuse – as happened in a Tesco in West Drayton where a man pelted staff with chocolate bars and screamed ‘get your f***ing hands off me’ in front of terrified children.
The BRC said last week that it had been made aware of 20.4million shoplifting incidents in the last year.
That was up 3.7million on the year before, costing shops a total of £2.2billion despite retailers investing £1.8billion in counter-measures.
Shoplifters are becoming more brazen too – committing thefts in plain sight of staff knowing they are unlikely to intervene for fear of getting hurt, or worse.
Ms Dickinson told the BBC shoplifters pillaged as they liked because ‘they don’t see that there’s necessarily any consequences’.
She added: ‘It’s outrageous and out of control in many parts of the country.’
Only a fraction of these are likely being reported to police – as experts believe retailers have given up on trying to get justice.
Despite the BRC reporting 20.4million customer theft incidents in a 12 month period, official figures suggest just 490,000 shoplifting offences were recorded last year.
Labour has pledged to make attacking retail staff a specific offence in England and Wales, bringing the countries into line with Scotland, following a campaign by the Mail for the government to take the issue more seriously.
Current laws around shoplifting are too lax, shop bosses say – as anything under £200 is considered a low-level offence that critics say are not pursued.
Lord Stuart Rose, the former Asda and Marks & Spencer boss, said the current laws effectively ‘decriminalised’ theft.
But Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer insisted the country could not tolerate ‘a situation where shoplifters can walk in, shoplift and walk back out again and nobody can do anything about it’ last year.
The frequency of incidents mean that many of the three million people working in the retail industry are terrified to come to work, according to The Retail Trust.
‘People are contacting our helpline in their thousands to report horrifying incidents of abuse and violence and many say that they are now at breaking point,’ Chris Brook-Carter, the organisation’s chief executive, said.
In London specifically, shoplifting incidents have risen 50 per cent year-on-year – more than twice the national average increase.
Mayor Sadiq Khan has blamed the capital’s greater concentration of shops and the cost-of-living crisis.
He said yesterday of the reasons behind the rise: ‘Because we have a lot of shops here, and because the cost-of-living crisis is more acute in the capital city.
‘Personal theft and personal robbery is a big concern for me in London, as well.’