“Decriminalising Shoplifting!” | Wrexham Shopkeeper Prints LARGER Signs Calling Thieves ‘Scumbags’

A Wrexham shopkeeper is refusing to remove signs calling thieves “scumbag shoplifters” despite a police visit prompted by a complaint they were “provocative and offensive.”

Rob Davies, who runs Run Ragged vintage shop, says he lost £200 in stock to theft and locked cabinets for valuable items, adding the sign was meant to deter criminals. Police said no offence was committed.

Davies has received widespread support, printed larger signs, and criticised a lack of action against shoplifting, which is at record levels in England and Wales.

Kevin O’Sullivan speaks with columnist for The Sun, Rod Liddle.

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Kev, how you doing? I’m all right, mate. I saw I’m glad you’re getting stuck into Mr. Norton Phillips or whatever he’s called. Norton Taylor. His dad was Richard uh Norton Taylor was his father. Richard Naughty Trousers. Yes, that’s right. I don’t think we better go into that. A long-term guardian uh with a uh a seem hated hatred of Israel. So, uh it looks it looks to me as if Mr. Norton Taylor is Hugo is a chip off the old block. We’ll talk about that later. Um, I want to talk to you first of all, a couple of sort of issues arising from some of your columns this week. But first up, what is going on in Rexom? In what kind of world do the police take it upon themselves to go round to a shopkeeper who’s put up a sign saying due to scumbag shoplifterss I’m sorry I’ve had to lock a lot of my produce uh in cabinets and what kind of a copper goes to him and says uh I’ve got to warn you that uh that’s provocative and could cause offense. I mean first of all it’s a copper who doesn’t understand the law. When are these cups going to work out, these roses going to work out that it is not against the law in Britain to be offensive or to offend people? This particular old bill didn’t seem to understand that. No, it’s a Uh, and so was the other one he turned up. I think two of them turned off. The only good thing to come out of this, cuz I spoke to the shopkeeper, Rob Davis, and the only good thing to come out of it, I said to him, “Are you going to take your sign down then, Rob?” And he said, “Uh, yes, I am. Uh, and I’m going to put another one up five times the size.” Oh, I like the sound of him. He’s good. He’s good. And you know, you you can predict a story, can’t you? He has been he’s been a victim of shoplifting five times so far this year. And how many police turned up to help him? You know, it it’s just it’s excruciatingly bad judgment by North Wales police. I’ve rung them today to find out, by the way, uh how many prosecutions and how many convictions they’ve nailed for shoplifting offenses in the last year. They haven’t got back yet. I got one message. It consisted all of W’s, Y’s, and G’s by the look of it. U so it was in Welsh. Um uh but I think it just said, “Thank you. We’ll look into your inquiry.” I mean, it it is it is shocking what we’re doing. Obviously, we are decriminalizing shoplifting. That’s it’s it’s clear. But not only that, it’s just evidence that the police think far more highly of the shoplifterss than they do of the shopkeepers. Yeah, I think that’s the wrong way around. Yeah, it’s disgusting. Call me a reaction, but I think that’s the wrong way around. Yeah, you’re you’re you’re a right-wing disgrace to this country. You really deplorable. Yeah, North Wales police have uh belatedly come to the conclusion that it does not appear that Miss Davis Mr. Davis has committed any offense. Of course, he hasn’t. And they say it would be up to the shopkeeper to decide whether he displayed such a sign in his store. Correct. Correct. Late in life. You’ve got that right. Uh the um Rexom City District Inspector Rodri Eans went on to say, “Uh, each day my officers go above and beyond to identify risk individuals and locations to prevent further incidents of shoplifting.” So, a guy puts up a sign, you know, basically uh uh uh a kind of a warning to shoplifterss and the police don’t approve of that. No, they think it’s nasty. They they think it’s horrid. Uh and it’s it’s there were two stories over the weekend, both of which showed the same thing, which is there is the police on one side of the argument and the entire country on the other. The other one, of course, was the the nutter who got his old fell out. the tube the tube train the British transport police who are now actively searching for the four heroes who when this guy dropped his trousers in his pants in front at 3:30 in the afternoon at the weekend on a busy train over in East London a tube train he drops his trousers in his pants uh traumatizing women and children four guys go hang on mate there’s kids on the plate put you pull the trouser he started screaming and shouting at them. They restrained him. Uh it was quite physical I think quite rightly so because the guy and then they took him off the train at the next step step uh stop uh restrained him and put him on the uh platform and called for help. Uh you know that yeah in what way? Yeah. Why do they want to check why do they want to arrest them? Uh they say that these guys look to have possibly been guilty of assault. They are the good guys. they did the right thing. What is wrong with the police here? And so we’ve had this debate in the country over the last year or so. Uh what would you do if you saw a crime being committed? Would you intervene? Would you try to Would you do the right thing? And people were surprised when the figures came back that an awful lot of people wouldn’t do the right thing. And you know why that is. It’s very straightforward. It’s because you think that you’re probably going to get done by the filth for actually intervening in the first case. That’s why it happens. You know, I and I don’t I don’t get why these moronic police chiefs of police don’t understand that, you know, that what side they’re meant to be on. The people who do the right thing, not the others. Now, sure, 40 years ago, perhaps the police were a bit too roughy tuy with criminals. Perhaps they didn’t always give them their rights. Perhaps they weren’t the kindest in the world. But the pendulum has on everything else has swung way too far in the other direction so that the police no longer know what they’re there for. Yeah. And would it be too much to ask that you know I don’t expect a police constable on the streets of Rexom to be you know have the legal knowledge of a barristister or anything like that but a few basic points of law in fact a lot of coppers including senior coppers including chief constables could do with some instruction on some basic points of law about three years ago uh the Murzy side uh police chief police constable uh sent out vans slogan vansu all around Muryside and on these vans was a warning to the people of Liverpool uh that it is an offense to be offensive. Yeah. He the the chief conipal of Muryside was quietly uh told actually uh uh boss it’s not an offense isn’t it? Uh no it’s not. So they had to bring all the fans down. I mean, where where where down the line did the police decide that to be offensive to offend anyone was somehow a criminal offense? I think it was I think it was sometime around the elevation of Seran Blair to boss of the Met. I think that’s where the rot started to set in. And and it’s be because of all these things, because of the lawyers as well, but because we now afford far more rights and privileges to offenders than we do to the people that the police are meant to be protecting us from. You know, you know that we it’s it’s become an absurdity that they spend half of their time looking through internet sites to see if anyone’s been nasty about anyone else. and and and when they find that someone’s been nasty about a shoplifter, they just it’s a knee-jerk reaction. They click into gear. That must be a crime. It it it is it is a madness. But it’s also, you know, what it does is just as with the with the nutter with his old fellow out on the tube. That’s got ramifications because it means other people will be reluctant to get involved or to intervene in a dispute in the future. The shoplifting stuff has ramifications. Firstly, more shoplifting will take place. Secondly, we’ll see what happened what what will happen in this country is what’s happened in San Francisco, the various other places which have decriminalized shoplifting in that all the businesses will go out of business. you know that that you will see boarded up shops all along your high streets and commercial uh enterprises will all fail because you cannot cope in a in a in a world that we have if your stock is being paged every few weeks. Yeah. Well, exactly right now to go back to Rexom and uh the poor shopkeeper there. This again is the Rexom City District Inspector. This is a top copper Rodri. Uh he goes on to say uh you a dedicated team of officers in Rexom have consistently maintained the highest detection rate for shoplifting offenses within the force over the past two years. He goes on to say and check this out. Uh a uh over the p last 12 months alone, a total of 14 individuals who repeatedly committed shoplifting offenses within the city have been subjected to a community behavior order through they are through the through the cost. Wait for it. Preventing them from entering the city center. Well, this is this is uh uh Mr. Ifan’s idea uh of you know dealing with shoplifterss in a very tough way. It’s not really is it community behavior orders? No. I wonder if that explains why they haven’t replied to me with my very very civil inquiry about how many shoplifterss they’ve prosecuted in the last year. Well, there you are. There you are. 14 14 14 14 uh it looks like over the tw over the last 12 months alone a total a total of 14 individuals uh have been subjected to a community behavior order. Uh well you know Rexom I suppose is a fairly small place so I suppose we shouldn’t get too judgmental about that small seeming number but it does seem to be quite small doesn’t it? It’s 14. North Wales police, by the way, were the were the were the cops who considered prosecuting me for being rude about the Welsh language by saying it didn’t have any vowels in it. So, they actually considered bringing a prosecution for a hate crime against against someone who commented on the number of vowels in their language. That that is the level we’re at, you know, that murder most vow or something. It’s really Yeah. Very good. Very good. Uh yeah. were you? And uh you were still in trouble, weren’t you? Uh in Brighton, for for not being very nice. No, no. I rang the I rang the filth there as well. And they said, “Uh, no, we’re not taking any further action on this case.” I said, “No, I’m not talking about against me. I’m talking about that who runs the council for wasting police time. Why aren’t you having a go at her?” Uh, and don’t forget, she’s complicit in all those asylum seekers who are coming here. She’s part of an organization which works to represent them and to make sure they get the right to stay. By the just just uh I mean we’re going to talk about this later on in the show, but um Downing Street issued a statement today saying that the uh refuting uh the very suggestion that smashed the gangs, you know, one year and one month after it was instigated. Uh, having not smashed any gangs, Downing Street said that doesn’t mean it’s a failure. Yeah. Yeah. No, indeed. It sort of does really, doesn’t it? But but but I think they’ve dropped it because he hasn’t said smash the gangs for a few days. Uh because he thinks his oneinone out deal will do. Yeah. I mean, just the title, the one in one out, how is that going to help K? Yeah. Well, again, again, I’m intruding on uh topics that we’re going to do later in the show, but over the the scheme came in last Wednesday, so it’s six days old and uh about 2,300 migrants have come over since the start of the scheme, which is supposed to be a deterrent. So, I would suggest that maybe it’s not really deterring anyone. It’s not deterring anyone. It’s not working, is it? I’ve got to play uh Kia. We’re going to go to break in a second, Rod, but I’m going to play a little bit of Kia Starmer talking about shoplifting. So stick around. Okay, good. Take it away, Kia. So today I’m putting shoplifterss on notice. You might get away with it under this weak Tory government, but if Labor takes power, we won’t stand by while crime takes over our streets. We’ll put 13,000 extra neighborhood police on the beat. We’ll scrap the shoplifters charter, the 200 pound rule that stops the police investigating theft in your workplace. And we’ll legislate to make sure assaulting and abusing shop workers is a standalone criminal offense because you deserve to feel safe at work. And then Rod, he got elected. Uh we’ll be back in just a second. Stick around folks.