A pet retailer who chased a shoplifter is stunned that police would not come when the thief threatened to stab him.
Robert Harper, who runs family-owned Coombs Pet Centre in Hove, said a man and a woman had taken two dog harnesses without paying. When Robert approached the man outside the shop and said he had CCTV footage, the man told him to ‘f**k off’.
The man then ran off and Robert gave chase, calling the police and giving a running commentary. The man then stopped, confronted Robert and while putting his hand in his pocket said: “I’m going to f***ing stab you’.
The police operator heard the entire conversation and asked if it was the shoplifter who was making the threat. Robert replied, ‘Yes’. He told pbwnews: “I asked when were the police going to come, and they said, ‘You will be waiting a while, no-one is coming. You probably should not chase him’.”
After a second chase, the thief threw one of the harnesses back at him.
Two weeks later, the police arrived to take a copy of the CCTV footage but lost it, and another officer turned up two weeks later.
Three customers were witnesses, and one was able to identify the man and where he lived. Yet police told Robert that they were not going to do anything and not to seek a prosecution as there ‘was not enough evidence’.
“Threatening to stab is a reasonably serious crime, they should have sent someone down,” he said.
‘NO CONSEQUENCE’
Wish Ward Conservative councillor Robert Nemeth told The Argus newspaper: “Both police and the council make conscious choices to not nip such incidents in the bud, which means that serious incidents like this come to pass without consequence.
“I have received tens of complaints about similar such crimes and have had stand-up rows with council officers over whether or not action should be taken. On one occasion, more time was spent discussing the terminology that the victims were using to describe the criminal than what might be done to help those affected.”
A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: “Due to a high number of calls and incidents, we were not able to respond to the incident at the time but he was advised not to pursue the suspects. He continued and one of them threw one of the stolen items to the ground.”
Robert said: “It’s come to the point where it feels like we have to take the matter into our own hands.”
