Supermarkets looted & cars knicked to order mean UK is in a theft epidemic – it’s shameful so little is done to stop it
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LADY Isobel Barnett, a Scottish TV and radio personality, was just 62 when she ended her own life by taking an overdose of painkillers in the bath. Her death, in 1980, came just four days after her conviction for shoplifting a can of tuna and a carton of cream from her village grocer in Cossington, Leicestershire.
![[Woman shoplifting a bottle of wine.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/woman-steals-bottle-wine-supermarket-959201566.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Fined £75 in court and publicly vilified, it was widely perceived that a mixture of depression and shame proved too hard for her to bear. Shame. Remember that? It’s clearly a wholly alien concept to the largely organised gangs of thieves now wreaking havoc in homes and retail outlets across the country.
![[Store employee unlocking a locked display of cold and flu medicine.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/store-employee-unlocking-merchandise-cough-965590385.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Lady Isobel’s poor mental state meant she undoubtedly stole as a cry for help and should never have been prosecuted. But fast forward 45 years and the pendulum has swung so far the other way that shoplifting now appears to have been downgraded by police as a crime barely worth bothering with.
![[Lady Isobel Barnett tending her garden.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NINTCHDBPICT000965536841.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Tech boss Paul Birch — founder of Bebo — had £500k of valuables stolen from his Surrey home but says it took police 12 hours to arrive and they didn’t even bother to view the CCTV footage. His wife Juliana says: “Then we were told the officer in charge was going on holiday and would contact us in the new year. He never did.
![[Chris Martin and Dakota Johnson in Mumbai.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20f62598-bf69-4e2d-b82f-bb09142a2e44.jpg?strip=all&w=616)
“So my daughter called the police three or four days ago and found out the case had been closed. “That is why these awful crooks get away with so many things, because it’s like the police are more interested in protecting the criminals than us, the targets.”.
![[Jade Thirlwall at the 2024 Rolling Stone UK Awards.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NINTCHDBPICT000952918602.jpg?strip=all&w=640)
