A supermarket security guard has revealed the grim reality of working on Britain’s crime-ridden high streets.
Kane Manning, 27, described the UK’s shoplifting problem as ‘out of control’, claiming he receives daily death threats from brazen gangs.
The guard explained these groups were targeting stores to steal vast quantities of luxury items, with £500 of goods nabbed every day from the supermarket he works at.
He claimed that the crisis has accelerated in the last year under the Labour government.
The shop staff member said: ‘It’s one hundred percent got worse since the new government came in.
‘They’re not doing anything at all. I get death threats on a daily basis when confronting people leaving the store with stolen goods.’
Mr Manning recalled one heist which saw thieves swipe £1,100 of Cadbury chocolate bars in a ‘highly planned’ operation at his store, which he would not name, in June 2025.
‘There were five of them,’ he said. ‘It was pretty intimidating.
Supermarket security guard Kane Manning, pictured, has revealed the grim reality of working on Britain’s crime-ridden high streets
Guards at Gregg’s wrestle with a shoplifter as he looks to make off with items from the food chain
A prolific thief swipes luxury goods from Boots. Mr Manning argued that the crisis has accelerated in the last year under the Labour government
‘They knew exactly where to go and headed straight to the highest value of chocolate on the aisle. Really fancy chocolate.
‘They had a big trolley and four big bags and were just shoving bars and bars in.
‘I was patrolling and caught them in the act and when they saw me they ran. I spooked them.
‘We had reports and descriptions of these people. They’d been going to different stores and had stolen over £12,000 worth in one month. It was all related.’
The security guard put the surge in shoplifting down to rampant TikTok trends, which suggest fraudulent discount codes that thieves can use at self-checkouts to bag discounts of up to 90 per cent.
Mr Manning added: ‘Pretty much every week I’ll catch kids between 12 and 16. They steal a lot of sweets. They think because its on TikTok it’s not illegal.
‘Sometimes, they’ll use fraudulent coupons from TikTok to get a discount. So for example, an item worth five pounds can then come up as 45p.
‘It’s basically a scam. I’ve seen that a lot lately.’
Mr Manning recalled one heist which saw thieves swipe £1,100 of Cadbury chocolate bars in a ‘highly planned’ operation at his store, which he would not name, in June 2025
Brazen thieves pictured stealing items from Waitrose. Security guard Mr Manning put the surge in shoplifting down to rampant TikTok trends
A man shoving luxury candles into an empty Waitrose bag in Hersham
He said that the shoplifting epidemic was putting security guards like him in danger and called on the government to step in.
‘Touch wood it never happens but as it is in security right now, you know something like that might happen,’ Mr Manning added.
‘I’m not sure what I’d do till the day it comes. Those situations are fight or flight so you only ever find out on the day how it will go down.’
Last month, a Labour minister admitted shoplifting had ‘got out of hand’ amid fury at advice telling shopkeepers to avoid sharing pictures of thieves.
A warning from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that shaming suspects could ‘breach data protection’ has been seized upon as proof that red tape is holding back efforts to tackle the scourge of retail theft.
Asked if it was right to display images of thieves in shop windows, Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘What we do know is that shoplifting has got out of hand in the country.
‘That is why we have taken the action that we have done in our Crime and Policing Bill.’
Asked again if it was right for shops to post photos of suspects, she responded: ‘I think it is on all of us to be aware of what is going on in our local communities.’
In another piece of footage, this time from Oxted, a man can be seen squatting down and hurriedly shoving four candles into an open Sainsbury’s bag
Shoplifting figures released this week by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showed just 2.5 per cent of offences were recorded by the police each year.
It said 50,000 shoplifting incidents go unreported every day as firms give up on the police.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: ‘Many retailers do not see the point of reporting incidents to the police.’
