I was a prolific middle-class shoplifter for months until I was caught in the act. Then I discovered what drove me and other wealthy mothers to steal... and I was shocked to my core
I was a prolific middle-class shoplifter for months until I was caught in the act. Then I discovered what drove me and other wealthy mothers to steal... and I was shocked to my core
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Walking out of the supermarket, my trolley loaded with about £70 of shopping, I must have looked like any other busy woman. I’d popped in before the school run to pick up groceries for my family – my husband Brian is 37 like me and works as a telecoms engineer, and we have two daughters, Erica, seven, and Gabriella, five.
![[I’d been stealing for a year, since the early spring of 2022. The first time was almost an accident, when I’d hung a large sack of nappies over a buggy and forgot to scan them]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/29/16/94643871-14338571-image-a-12_1738166944942.jpg)
But as I approached my car, a male voice behind me said: ‘Excuse me, can I pull you to one side?’. And that’s when time stopped. In that moment, I knew it was over. For the past 12 months, I had been brazenly shoplifting in my affluent north London suburb – and no one had ever said a thing.
Why would they suspect me? I appeared to be an ordinary middle-class mother-of-two. I earned a decent salary working in IT and lived in a comfortable three-bedroom home with my family. There was absolutely no reason for me to steal. I’ve since learned that I am part of a wave of so-called ‘middle-class shoplifters’. This week, shopkeepers in one Surrey town revealed the problem has got so bad they’ve formed a vigilante group to track repeat offenders stealing jewellery and plush toys. The typical culprits? ‘Well-off middle-aged women’.
As for me, I had helped myself to more than £1,000 of goods over the 12 months before that spring afternoon in 2023. Never high-end items, just one bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, some wholemeal wraps or bags of salad tucked away in each trolley. There has been a wave of middle-class shoplifters, with traders in one Surrey town saying the problem has got so bad that they’ve formed a vigilante group to track repeat offenders.
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