Shoplifters pinched more than £100 of cured meat from a shop on West Bridgford's high street. Workers at the Fruit Basket in Gordon Road said the theft on January 25 had had a "massive" impact on the store.
Manager Cherie Severn told Nottinghamshire Live two women came into the shop and took five £20 packets of hand-carved cured meat. She said the women, who she described as short and in their 40s and 60s, had used a child with a disability to distract a colleague.
"She was screaming," said shop assistant Debs Gilmore. "The shop was busy and I was on my own, they knew what they were doing."
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Ms Severn added: "It's £100 lost and we're not going to get that back, times are hard enough as it is. We also had a guy take a handful of cherries, when I confronted him he said 'what are you going to do, call the police?'
"It's not fair, we are trying to work hard to keep the business going for the community and people help themselves."
Sergeant Sarah Merrall, of Nottinghamshire Police’s Rushcliffe neighbourhood policing team, said police were committed to tackling shop theft. “As part of this, we have increased patrols in the West Bridgford area and work closely with stores that are regularly targeted to collect CCTV so that we can identify and prosecute offenders," she said.
“A disproportionate number of shop thefts are actually committed by a relatively small group of offenders, so focusing on stopping these people has led to offending falling in recent months. Collecting evidence in this way has allowed us to put several of the area’s frequent offenders before the courts, where they’ve received custodial sentences or been issued with orders banning them from entering certain stores again."
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