A mum who got away with shoplifting hundreds of times as a teenager has set up a firm to catch thieves.
Farrah McNutt, 25, advises stores on the tactics criminals use and helps bring them to justice with a rogues gallery on her website.
CCTV images of suspects on catchathief.co.uk have helped identify more than 20 so far.
Farrah set up her business after reading how only one in ten store thefts are reported because retailers have lost confidence in the police.
“It got me thinking about how I could use my own experience to help,” she says. “I started when I was 13. I was one of 11 kids and my mum didn’t have the money to give me everything my friends had.
“So I stole from shops. I’d take anything I wanted – make-up, clothes, alcohol. The more I got away with it the more I wanted to do it. It was an addiction.”
Farrah, of Loughborough, Leics, says she was caught fewer than ten times and hardly ever went to court.
But after becoming a teenage mum she got caught again and a suspended jail term gave her the shock she needed to stop.
She returned to school and passed her GCSEs and, with help from boyfriend Paul Lynch, 45, she turned her life around.
Farrah explained: “I came up with the idea of the website and Leicestershire Police were fully behind me.”
The Prince’s Trust gave her £1,500 for a laptop and training, and since last year shops have been paying for her help.
She said: “I advise on things like where to position their cameras and mirrors. There are so many different tactics that shoplifters use.”
Her 30 clients have all reported a drop in crime. Raj Aggarwal, who has a Spar shop in Sheffield, praised her “knowledge and expertise”.
Reported thefts in stores have risen by 17 per cent in the last five years to 374,395 a year.
A policy of not arresting thieves who take less than £200 worth of goods, launched in 2014, has been blamed. Most police forces now send an officer to a store only in cases of violence or threats.
