Shoplifting allegations against now resigned Green MP Golriz Ghahraman reignited memories for senior writer Mary Anne Gill. She writes of a simpler time when she saw a shoplifting incident.
Photo: Arina Krasnikova. Pexels.com
Mary Anne Gill
My first job out of high school was as a management trainee for Woolworths in Wellington’s Cuba Street variety store branch.
Part of the job involved looking out for shoplifters. More experienced colleagues taught me how to spot them and who were the likely suspects.
This was pre CCTV days, so we had to have eagle eyes – mothers with prams, people carrying umbrellas or rolled newspapers, wearing bulky coats with heaps of pockets and taking regular trips to the changing rooms.
But there was another suspect type – well-dressed and obviously well-off women.
That seemed odd to me. Why would someone who had enough money to buy the goods themselves shoplift instead?
One of the first of this type I “caught” (with the help of a section manager who knew the drill far better than me) was a beautiful middle-aged woman, immaculately dressed and dripping with jewellery.
She was a regular in the store and had been “caught” before and let off. Managers then had the authority to release people without calling in the police.
The manager did something which I’ve never forgotten.
He rang her husband – apparently a well-known Wellington identity but unknown to me – and he came and picked her up.
She had enough money in her purse to buy the goods she had pinched, and the funny thing is she didn’t even want or need them. We took them off her and returned them to the shop floor.
She sat in the office waiting for her husband, sobbing quietly. The manager told me to go back to my work.
I never thought to question his decision to let her off although he would not be able to do what he did today because retailers have strict rules; police must either be called or provided with evidence of shoplifting.
But to return to the woman. This was the 1970s – mental health issues, stress or post-natal depression were unknowns. Perhaps she was simply a bored rich housewife?
I have no idea whether any of those applied.
But I do recall feeling desperately sad for her even though I knew she had shoplifted and probably would do so again.
With the benefit of hindsight – 45 plus years of it – her stealing was a cry for help. Was the response then the proper one?
Who knows.
Photo: Fabio Gasperoni, Pexels.com
