CCTV catches grey nomad stealing from Qld roadhouse

Police are hunting a ‘grandma’ after a brazen theft at an outback Queensland roadhouse was captured in a viral video.

Police are hunting a grey nomad after a brazen theft at an outback Queensland roadhouse was captured in a viral video.

The Burke and Wills Roadhouse north of Julia Creek posted CCTV footage on Facebook of a woman, believed to be aged in her 70s, stealing two fishing shirts from the business last week.

The post, captioned “Grandma’s travels”, shows the woman picking shirts from the rack in the roadhouse and taking them off the hangers.

A woman has been caught on CCTV appearing to take shirts from a Queensland roadhouse. Picture: Supplied

She furtively looks around as another customer approaches before stuffing the items under her T-shirt, putting the hangers back on the rack, picking up her sunglasses and phone and calmly walking out of the shop.

The video clip has been shared about 2500 times and attracted almost 750 comments on the Burke and Wills Roadhouse Facebook page.

Roadhouse owner Ben Stanger said the woman had been quickly identified, with people providing him with her name and phone number which he had passed on to the police.

Mr Stanger said the shirts, with the roadhouse logo on them, cost $74.99 each but he was more concerned that the woman may also be stealing from other businesses.

A woman has been caught on CCTV appearing to take shirts from a Queensland roadhouse. Picture: Supplied

“It’s definitely not her first rodeo if you look at how blatant she is in the video,” he said.

“As soon as it went up, we got a heap of responses from people that knew her.

“She ended up in Gregory (about 385km northeast of Julia Creek) and then two days later, some more people rang and said they’d seen her in Normanton.

“The public’s been unbelievable ringing up and letting us know whereabouts she is, and we’ve passed it on to the police.

“We haven’t contacted her - we’re leaving it up to our good friends, the police.

“If they don’t catch up with her, we’ll ring her ourselves and just see whether we can recover our shirts or the money.”

A woman has been caught on CCTV appearing to take shirts from a Queensland roadhouse. Picture: Supplied

Mr Stanger said the roadhouse had to deal with fuel drive-offs but not too many grey nomad thieves.

“It’s hopefully shamed her enough to rethink about doing it again,” he said.

“If things are that tough, she only needs to come and have a yarn to us, but don’t steal. She paid for fuel and a drink so it’s not as if she didn’t have any money.”