Serial shoplifter gets 10 years in jail after stealing £0.5m from big-name retailers

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jul 31, 2024

A prolific fashion and beauty products shoplifter has finally been jailed for 10 years. And it’s taken almost 10 years to bring Narinder Kaur to justice.

She travelled across the UK in what she described as a “full-time” job stealing clothing, beauty and homewares goods from John Lewis, TK Maxx, Debenhams, House of Fraser, Monsoon and Boots, making around £500,000 from gaining refunds on those stolen items.

Her haul was accrued after more than a thousand store visits between July 2015 and February 2019.

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The largest single fraud was committed against Boots, where Kaur received £60,787 in refunds from seven UK stores, from July 2015 to February 2019, despite having only spent £5,172 with the retailer during that same period.

She also received £42,853 in refunds from Debenhams -- having only spent £3,681 during a four-year period -- and £33,131 in refunds from John Lewis stores, including in Milton Keynes, Watford, Chester and Nottingham, having only spent £5,290 between August 2015 and December 2018.

She also visited several Monsoon stores in the West Midlands, South Wales and Thames Valley where she claimed £23,000 more in refunds than in payments to the stores. TK Maxx was also defrauded of some £14,500.

Sentencing Kaur at Gloucester Crown Court, Judge Ian Lawrie KC said her crimes were "stubbornly persistent and on a near-Olympian scale”.

He added: ”The scale of the offending was on a near-industrial scale. The overall value of the offending has been valued at £500,000.”

The court heard Kaur was seen on CCTV entering stores, taking items from the shelves and taking them to the tills as if they had been previously purchased.

Gareth Weetman, prosecuting, alleged that Kaur relied on the goodwill of cashiers or store managers by telling them sob stories about sick relatives in order to commit her crimes.

During two police searches of her home, around £150,000 in cash was found hidden, as well as stolen goods.