A BOY crawls on the ground along the counter through the open door of a Mount Isa convenience store, as his look-out watches near the entrance.
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Colonial Convenience Store manager Ian Ah-Wing watches the CCTV footage of the impudent shoplifting which happened at about 6.30pm on October 2.
The boy waits in front of the counter, then jumps up right in front of the employee behind the cash register. He grabs an item not clear enough to identify in the footage, and bolts out the door.
Five minutes before the captured footage there are four children seen wandering the store outside. A shift supervisor is outside watching them but Mr Ah-Wing notices they keep looking into the store.
“So they were planning it,” he said.
Mr Ah-Wing said the stolen items were salty plums. It’s a dried prune with a salty and sugary mixture on it, which some local children love enough to steal, no matter where in the store the treats are moved to.
The shift supervisor comes back inside and then the children peer inside through the glass door, watching the movements of the staff.
The store owner Bob Burow said these types of thefts happen in his store about four times a week.
Recently a minor shoplifter jumped onto the counter during a robbery.
“It’s gradually been increasing over the last 12 months,” Mr Burow said.
“It quite often seems to be the same group of kids wandering the street.”
He acknowledged that the children had watched the staff movements carefully before the theft shown in the footage.
“That’s probably the scary part, is it seems to be getting a bit more calculated.
“I hope the kids don’t graduate to more serious crimes later on.”
The shoplifting in the convenience store seemed to happen more during the holidays, Mr Burow said.
“I wish there was a bit more for the kids to do in the town over the school holidays, even with the ice-skating, I thought that was a great thing.
“The more the kids have got to do the less trouble they will cause in my opinion.”
But most children who entered the store were not stealing and were good customers, Mr Burow clarified.
“90 per cent of the kids we’re dealing with are very polite and great kids...it’s just unfortunate we have got the odd couple that make it bad for everyone else.”