A prolific shoplifter brazenly walked out of a Next store with hundreds of pounds worth of clothes in astonishing CCTV before stealing £600 of alcohol from a Co-op and pinching slabs of meat from Waitrose.
Footage shows how Lorraine Williams, 51, walked around the Next branch eyeing up stock then cramming her trolley with six coats and a pair of jeans before casually strolling out of the shop.
She made off with £535 worth of goods from the store in Serpentine Green Shopping Centre, Hampton, Cambridgeshire, at about 6.45pm on October 30 without any attempt to pay.
And two days later on November 1 she entered a branch of Waitrose carrying a bag with the slogan ‘I only came for one thing’ before pinching cuts of meat worth £121.
She is seen in video grabbing joint after joint from the meat fridge in Waitrose, West Town, before a staff member apparently becomes suspicious and stands watching nearby.
However that didn’t put her off and a week later she was back – stealing 20 bottles of alcohol worth about £600 from the Co-Op in Bentley Avenue, Yaxley.
Williams also stole items from supermarkets including Co-op, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s
Lorraine Williams admitted four counts of theft, going equipped for theft and breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order imposed last year for similar crimes
Footage shows how Williams, 51, walked around the Next branch eyeing up stock
She crammed her trolley with six coats and a pair of jeans before casually strolling out of the shop
The shoplifter then moved on to the Sainsbury’s in Chequers Shopping Centre, Huntingdon, on November 18 where she took further booze.
Williams has now been ordered to pay more than £1,000 in compensation for the thefts to the shops she stole from.
She admitted four counts of theft, going equipped for theft and breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order imposed last year for similar crimes.
On two occasions in the last two months, Williams was caught on CCTV at Brotherhoods Retail Park in Peterborough – a breach of a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) which was imposed by the courts in May 2022 following multiple convictions for shoplifting.
That order states she is not allowed to go to Brotherhood Retail Park, Maskew Avenue Retail Park or any Spar, Iceland, or Food Warehouse store in the Peterborough area.
On December 4, Williams was spotted by response officers at an underpass near Rhubarb Bridge in Peterborough and arrested for the shoplifting incidents and breaching her CBO.
She was further arrested for going equipped for theft and being in possession of heroin after being found with a foil-lined bag and a wrap of the class A drug.
Williams, of Eastfield, appeared at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court on December 6 where she admitted the charges and she was sentenced to 26-weeks in prison, suspended for 18-months.
She must also complete a 30-day Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR), pay £500 in compensation to Next and £600 to Co-Op.
Williams first entered Next in Serpentine Green Shopping Centre, Hampton, Cambs, with a shopping trolley at about 6.45pm on October 30 and made off without making any attempt to pay
She grabs joint after joint from the meat fridge before a staff member apparently becomes suspicious
It follows similar charges last year, where she stole clothes from TK Maxx at Brotherhood Retail Park on August 31.
Meanwhile in January 2021 she used a de-tagging device to steal thousands of pounds worth of goods from several branches of Tesco and was also in the dock for stealing a Ted Baker handbag worth £180 from John Lewis in Cambridge on October 3, 2020.
Then, she was handed 18 weeks in prison.
Police previously described her as a ‘prolific shoplifter who causes significant loss and disruption to local businesses’.
It comes amid an alarming rise in shoplifting, with offences up a quarter in England and Wales in the year to June.
Some 365,164 shoplifting offences were recorded by police in that time – up 25% on the previous 12 months.
The Co-op said its food business lost £33m in the first six months of 2023, while other groups have warned that it isn’t a victimless crime.
PC Stacey Ireson, who investigated the most recent thefts for Cambridgeshire Police, said: ‘Williams is a prolific shoplifter who is evidently going to great measures to steal from businesses and go undetected.
‘For as long as she continues to commit crime or breach her CBO, we will continue to put her before the courts.’