Moment Woolworths supermarket thwarts customer from stealing groceries

Video showed staff walking up to the man and yanking the full shopping cart away from him.

The witness said she heard the man assault staff members because they accused him of not paying for his groceries.

“I was standing at the checkout paying for my groceries and saw an employee shouting at the man that he had not paid for his groceries, but he just kept walking.

“Other workers intervened to hold the trolley and he then started verbally abusing them.

“He said, ‘F*** you b***h’ to the lady who worked there. He said, ‘I paid for it, why do you have to make fun of me,’ but he didn’t pay,” she claimed.

During the altercation, the man was seen grabbing a basket and taking items from the seized cart and placing them in the basket.

On video he can be heard saying: “Why are you taking my trolley, you stupid b***h?” before you walk out of the store with a full shopping basket.

The witness told the Herald that some customers who saw the incident were elderly and some appeared scared and shocked.

A Woolworths spokesperson told the Herald the man made off with a handful of items in the shopping basket, but the trolley lock system prevented him from leaving with a full cart of goods.

The trolley lock system recognizes when customers leave the store with a trolley without using a cash register, locks the wheels and activates an alarm.

“The safety of customers and teams is our top priority and we are disappointed by this incident.

“Our investment in a trolley lock system prevented the offender from leaving the premises with the trolleys full of products, and we commend our team for the way they handled this situation.

“This system is just one of the safety and security measures we are investing in to reduce theft and keep our customers and team safe.”

Police told the Herald no police report had been made into the incident, but acknowledged how alarming it could be if the public witnessed it.

“We know the brazen nature of shoplifting can be frustrating for the public,” a spokesperson said.

“However, our advice is to prioritize safety and not to intervene physically in these types of situations.”

The incident comes a month after Woolworths announced it had a store in Pt Chevalier has shortened its trading hours in an attempt to reduce “anti-social behaviour”.

In October, posters were put up outside the store to tell customers the news.

“After evaluating our current hours, we found that these new hours are better and safer for our customers and for our team,” the poster said.

The new hours of 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, came into effect on October 14.

“Upper management agreed this would be safer for the store. That’s how they explained it to the staff,” an employee told the Herald at the time.

A spokesperson for Woolworths New Zealand told the newspaper Herald it had reviewed trading hours at its Pt Chevalier store in consultation with “our team and our union”.

“Following this review, we have shortened trading hours with the aim of reducing the risk of anti-social behaviour.”

The change comes after Woolworths shared new data in July the number of attacks in stores had increased significantly compared to the previous year, where team members were threatened and abused in broad daylight every day, especially by repeat offenders.

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