What Australians should do as muggings skyrocket in London

Australian woman Danielle Gusmaroli was mugged in broad daylight while in London as the tourist hotspot sees an increase in the crime. This is what Aussie expats and tourists need to know.

Four young women in puffer jackets, faces exposed, stroll casually into a fashion sportswear store in an affluent west London neighbourhood. One picks up a suitcase in the window display and carts it off. The other three peruse the shelves and pass down the human chain and out the door expensive clothing to their liking.

The 17-second CCTV footage that captured the brazen shoplifting at Sweaty Betty in Chiswick has done nothing to deter thieves.

Police were called but did not attend that day.

Several hours later, in the afternoon, the greedy foursome returned. Once they had plucked more items off the shelves and hangers, they insulted a member of staff, calling her a “dirty Albanian” when she hit the panic button and threatened to call police.

“I was in the store when six travellers burst in and raided the place,” manager of the fashionable sportswear store Christina Betts said.

Sweaty Betty in Chiswick, London, where they are facing a shoplifting crisis. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

“One of our staff is Greek Albanian and understood them to say ‘there are only two of them, and six of us, let’s take them on’,” Ms Betts said.

Sweaty Betty’s Chiswick manager Christina Betts. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

“It was scary they didn’t care who saw. It’s almost every week that it’s happening around here,” she said. “I’m on edge, I’m just waiting for the next lot.”

Down the road in the wealthy leafy family quarter, opticians Maverick and Wolf has locked its main door after thieves targeted it twice in two days, swiping several pairs of designer sunglasses and frames.

A note on the door now reads: “Due to an increase in theft and threatening behaviour towards our team … Our team will open the door for you, and the door will be locked behind you. The safety of yourself and your team is our number one priority”.

Opticians Maverick and Wolf is operating behind a locked door. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

A sign erected at Maverick and Wolf saying why it had locked its main door. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

Independent stores and chain brands have been hit by a surge of pick-pocketing, burglary and shoplifters to epic proportions that traders are robbed every fifteen minutes in London.

Chiswick is not unique to the new wave of brazen crime sweeping the capital and cities across the country in recent weeks.

Fresh statistics from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) reveals retail thefts across the sector in England and Wales rose 27 per cent over the past year in the UK’s 10 largest cities, costing retailers almost £1 billion in the year to March 2022.

It says “theft incidents” from shops have doubled since 2016-17, and are now running at eight million a year. Yet the number of people being charged has nose dived. Ten years ago it was more than 80,000 a year. In the year to June 2022, it was just over 21,000.

In March alone this year, police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland recorded a staggering 33,000 incidents of shoplifting.

Several weeks ago London shoppers found themselves barricaded inside three Oxford Street stores as police wrestled and chased after hundreds of teenagers who had turned up wearing balaclavas and gloves expecting to take part in a mass robbery.

Widely shared posts on TikTok and Snapchat had invited anyone who felt compelled to “rob JD Sports” at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon, in a copycat of a successful looting spree in an Oxford Street US-style sweet shop a year earlier.

London Lord Mayor Sadiq Khan. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

“Anyone committing a crime can expect to be dealt with robustly,” warned London Mayor Sadiq Khan ahead of the mass raid. His words fell on deaf ears.

Police with batons announced a heavy presence and wrestled suspected runaway thieves to the ground. One policeman was punched in the face.

Thirty-four youths were given dispersal orders and nine arrested for offences including “going equipped to steal”.

The Home Secretary Suella Braverman is furious and has called for those responsible for the Oxford Street disorder to be hunted and thrown in jail, and warned that the UK must not become a mirror image of “the lawlessness seen in some American cities”.

A man wearing a face cover looks at a looted store in Downtown Long Beach, California. Looting in parts of San Francisco, Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles are chilling proof of what happens when crime isn’t prosecuted. Picture: Apu Gomes/AFP

The looting and chaos seen in parts of San Francisco, Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles are chilling proof of what happens when crime isn’t prosecuted.

There is a new level of fearlessness and aggression in those stealing. Offenders have realised how little chance they have if being caught or punished.

Inside fashion boutique Lizard, shoppers admire designer garbs and coats under the laser gaze of the owner.

Lizard, just off Chiswick High Road, is one of the several businesses that have been targeted by thieves in recent days. Dresses costing £300.00 ($588.12) were snatched from his store last week.

“I have CCTV, I had security, but even if you employ security they are powerless, and the police in England don’t come … it’s all about budget cuts,” owner Kambiz Hendessi said.

“I have owned this shop for 40 years – thefts come in fits and starts, often when there is a recession or a financial crisis,” Mr Hendessi said.

“Everyone’s poor and struggling to make ends meet. And the shoplifting … it’s spiralling out of control right now and this is a very nice area.”

Lizard clothes boutique in Chiswick, London. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

Shoplifting was officially downgraded by the British government in 2014 when it redefined the stealing of less than £200-worth (A$392) of goods as a summary offence in almost all cases, punishable by a fine of just £70 (A$137), and allowing those who plead guilty to pay by post without facing the ignominy of court. It was a signal to police that this offence was rarely worth investigating.

The Consortium’s chief executive Helen Dickinson has written to Sadiq Khan, calling for action to protect shop staff and crack down on thieves, and to Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, to ensure it is being treated as a priority, with “adequate resourcing”.

The nature of such crimes is changing, as thieves became “bolder, and more aggressive”, she says.

“Every time I speak with retailers, crime is getting worse,” said Ms Dickinson. The BRC, represents about 70 per cent of the UK retail industry.

The policy of letting the small crimes go and leaving society to take care of itself doesn’t work.

When fear, suspicion and disorder prevail, they erode everything that binds communities. It threatens already struggling high streets, rewards lawlessness, encourages criminal networks and makes those who follow the rules feel either dumb and exploited.

Kambiz Hendessi, owner of Chiswick fashion boutique Lizard. Picture: Danielle Gusmaroli

“And I’m watching, like a hawk, everyone that comes into my shop …”

‘I WAS MUGGED’

Almost four months ago I was mugged while filing a report on my laptop from a sandwich shop franchise chain, Pret A Manger.

I was on deadline, sitting at the window by the entrance of the store in Regent Street, a major shopping street in the West End of London, when three shadows loomed over me.

It was around 3pm when I felt myself lurch inexplicably forward, face down, into the table, amid grumbles of “give me money”.

I couldn’t see what was pressing against me and struggled to push back. With three against one, even with a shop full of people, all of whom had suddenly developed selective blindness, I had no hope of shaking the attackers off. The whole thing was terrifying.

Danielle Gusmaroli.

One shoved a dog-eared lamented note, clearly used to being hauled around, under my nose. “Please give me money, I have no food or anywhere to sleep,” it begged.

“I don’t have any,” I protested, feebly trying to push against the strength of all three.

My bag was on the table in front of me where I see it. A native Londoner, I knew better than to place it on the ground from where city thieves have a habit of making them magically disappear.

“Get off me,” I protested.

The lunchtime customers bit into their packed sandwiches and looked away.

The laminated note was cunningly placed between me and my bag. Then, as quickly as they arrived, the trio disappeared and I was suddenly freed from the temporary paralysis.

A lumbering man entering the shop snatched a black purse from the hand of one of the fleeing men on his way out.

“Who’s is this?” he inquired, beaming as the three slipped past him.

It was mine.

The gallant gentleman asked me to check inside my bag for other missing items. My iphone 13 Pro Max containing the last pictures of my recently deceased mother, gone.

I cried.

The staff regained their sight and came to console me.

“They’re Romanians, they come to the store three times a day and rob people,” one fuming attendant said.

“We have them on CCTV and each time we call police, they never come. Now when we see them coming, we turn away.

“We’re scared they’ll come for us … what if they have knives?”

Danielle Gusmaroli called the police after being mugged, logged a statement, and no one turned up. Picture: iStock

I called the police, thanks to a sympathetic lady in the shop who lent me her phone, and logged a statement.

“Why didn’t you call as soon as it happened?” the officer barked down the phone.

I explained I had been on hold for 20 minutes trying to get through but he ordered me to remain in situ and an officer would attend.

No one turned up. At 9pm, a policewoman called the store to speak to me.

“Sorry Danielle, I know you’ve been waiting, but we’ve got other crimes to attend to, we’re short staffed. Go home and sleep it off.”

The thieves somehow got nothing from my bank cards and accounts or friends, all stored on my phone. But the attack cost me hundreds of pounds and dozens of hours in restoring passwords, unfreezing bank accounts and begging my bank to give me cash while I awaiting replacement cards.

My phone ended up at a phone store in Dubai five weeks later, an email from a tracker I had placed on the phone informed me.

The police issued me a crime number. I am now officially a robbery statistic. One of an estimated eight million theft incidents from shops and muggings a year.

Originally published as What Australians should do as muggings skyrocket in London