Charity shop hit by shoplifting resorts to hiding stock

KentOnline / KMTV

Staff at Making a Difference to Maidstone (MADM) charity shop have revealed their “constant battle” against thieves has led them to close fitting rooms and hide stock.

Transcript

00:00Caught on camera a familiar sight here in Maidstone with shoplifting being a regular occurrence

00:10for those working in this charity shop. It's just a sort of a bit of a slap in the face because

00:16everything we do here goes back to the people in Maidstone and so from the sort of circle of

00:21someone donating something that they've looked after for years or or their precious collection

00:26and then for me to put it out and for it just to be stolen it's just it's just destroying.

00:32It's not just shoes having to be put behind the counter with metal handles being ripped from

00:40furniture and some high value items never even hitting the shopping room floor in the first place.

00:49Shoplifting's got so bad here they've even had to board up half the fitting rooms.

00:56It's pushing us to get more vigilant on things that we never needed to do before so it's taking staff

01:04away from vital areas to be watching those very few people that do this and what it does is it has a

01:10massive impact on everybody the morale of the shop because people feel they've failed the charity of

01:15things are being stolen which they haven't they're doing their best and people are only taken away

01:20as I say from the people in need. Shoplifting is on the rise here in Kent with recent data revealed

01:28at the Kent and Police Crime Commissioner's Delivery Board showing that despite crime overall dropping by

01:3710% over the last four years shoplifting has skyrocketed by more than 50% during that time.

01:48There's some work that needs to be done that we are doing through my retail crime board to analyse

01:52quite what is happening in that space it is a crime which is massively under-reported anyway so

01:58we want to encourage more people to come forward more people to tell us about what's happening so we can

02:02bring more offenders to account. But as retail crime continues to soar making a difference won't be easy.

02:12Oli Lieder in Maidstone

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