Walker Smith, 54, who has worked as a store assistant at Waitrose for the past 17 years, has been fired for trying to stop a shoplifter.
This is the damning series of events that took place at Waitrose’s Clapham Junction branch: a customer alerted Smith to a thief filling a bag with Lindt chocolate eggs (£13 a pop). Recognising a repeat offender, Walker grabbed the bag. In the brief ensuing tussle, the bag split, spilling chocolate onto the floor. The thief fled and Smith picked up a fragment of a chocolate bunny and hurled it at some trolleys in frustration (he emphasised he had not been aiming at the shoplifter). That was enough to earn him a reprimand, and he offered an apology. Nonetheless, days later, he was informed he had been fired and was led out via the back door. Smith acknowledged that he had been told previously not to approach shoplifters but said he was frustrated at seeing them always get away with it. He says he may now be made homeless. In a statement, Waitrose has declared, ‘Nothing we sell is worth risking lives for’ and that all the correct procedures were followed.
While this may be one of the most maddeningly egregious examples, the same mentality of punishing the do-gooder is now rife in our country
This supermarket worker exhibited the sort of personal responsibility and gumption that any employer with their head screwed on would applaud. Yet Waitrose – presumably fearful of potential liability – has sacked him for stepping in where police and even store security appeared happy to stand by.
Assuming the facts are as reported, Waitrose has acted shamefully and should give this gent his job back. This travesty occurred in the same week M&S, to their great credit, spoke out about the growing epidemic of shoplifting, amidst rioting in Clapham that targeted one of their stores. Chief executive Stuart Machin wrote to the Home Secretary while M&S retail director, Thinus Keeve, wrote to Sadiq Khan. Keeve put it bluntly: ‘I keep hearing crime is falling, especially in London – something none of us believe and very few people working in retail would see… It is worse in London, but it is happening across the country, and it is becoming routine, because it seems there are no consequences.’ Erstwhile Waitrose devotees may well conclude that M&S is more deserving of their custom.
As a country we need more people like Walker Smith willing to say enough is enough – but people will only step up if they know employers and authorities have their backs. And the truth is, while this may be one of the most maddeningly egregious examples, the same mentality of punishing the do-gooder is now rife in our country. Like the graffiti-scrubbing volunteers smeared by TfL chief Andy Lord who suggested they had caused the graffiti themselves. Or the passenger investigated by the police for forcefully removing a man exposing himself on the Tube. Or the Metroline bus driver sacked for gross misconduct for tackling a thief who stole a passenger’s necklace. Apparently restraining the criminal for almost half an hour amounted to ‘excessive use of force and [was] disproportionate.’
We live in a country where steaks come in cages and bars of Dairy Milk carry anti-theft protection tags. Shoplifting in the year ending September 2025 was up 5 per cent on the previous year. Yet we also live in a country where you can be sure that if you respond to crime with preventative action you will be met by the finger wagging of the state – or even criminal charges. Britain operates on a perversion of JFK’s famous call – ‘ask not what your country does for you, and you better not do anything for your country’.
Sometimes it takes direct personal exposure to shatter one’s suspicions that it all might just be fake news peddled by right-wing culture warriors. My father was until recently a middle of the road political moderate who tended to react with some bemusement to my insistence that the country is going to the dogs. But then he had a run-in of his own with shoplifters at his local Waitrose branch: two men armed with large laundry bags helped themselves to premium spirits. The store security guard filmed them. My father ran after them to jot down the number plate of their car. He left after half an hour or so when the police still hadn’t turned up, passing on his details and the number plate to a store assistant (who swiftly googled it and found out the car was stolen). No action seems to have been taken. Though after this run-in (and, it should be said, repeated instances of parcels being stolen from outside his front door, all caught on the doorbell camera) my father tends to agree with me about the state of things. It was the capitulation of the response – the utter cravenness – that most demoralised him.
You may notice that increasingly these shoplifters do not bother covering their faces. Why would they? There’s no fear, because there’s no consequences. They know that there’s only a tiny chance of arrest, let alone a conviction. Shoplifting under £200 has been effectively decriminalised, and the scrapping of most short-term sentences which came into force last month (after tireless campaigning by the likes of Rory Stewart) means even more serious shoplifters are unlikely to ever see the inside of a prison cell.
Now with even the chance of getting into a tussle with security safely removed, the shoplifters can get back to their criminal routine in peace. Meanwhile the rest of us go back to our own daily reality: paying ever more to subsidise store security and what the thieves take for free, all while we increasingly ask ourselves: what’s the point?
