I need love too, but I don't go looking for it in the supermarket

In the wake of celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson being caught shoplifting at Tesco, all kinds of reasons why have come to the surface, apologies were made, clever headlines were dreamt up by the tabloids ( The Sun went with 'Ready Steady Crook' oh how we laughed......)

Still, celebrity shoplifting is a source of hilarity, not outrage.

We don't know why he stole some coleslaw when he was buying hundreds of pounds worth of champagne at the same time. We don't know why Tesco watched him do this five times before they decided to step in.

Since being caught stealing, according to him, he cries himself to sleep. He has all kinds of deep-rooted psychological difficulties from childhood abuse, to his business collapsing, to bereavements and goodness knows what else. He is now going to get the treatment he needs. It's a shame we don't have Shoplifters Anonymous as they do in America. Celebrity shoplifting is seen as a cry for help across the Atlantic. Embarrassing? Yes. Evil? Not so much. Who can forget the "Free Winona" T-shirts?

 

These people don't steal because they need stuff that they just can't afford. They steal because they are stressed/addicted to painkillers/have a deep desire to be loved. Fair play, I kinda understand that. But everybody wants to be loved, including me, but I don't feel the need to go wandering around the aisles in my local supermarket looking for it.

 

It seems to me that it's so much easier for people to blame what they do on some sort of mental illness or stress or pressures at work than actually take some responsibility for their actions. I'm no expert, far from it , despite suffering from a mental illness myself, and I am sure that shoplifting may be some symptom or reaction to some buried psychological problem that is buried deep down, but what if it is just in fact well, stealing?

 

While celebrity shoplifters are seen as rather amusing in the media, when it is just us "normal folk" that decide to fill our trolleys without paying, it becomes this outrage in society. Seems to me there is some sort of double standards going on here. One rule for them and another for everyone else. What is fair about that?