A sweet shop owner caught a brazen thief stuffing more than £30 of treats into a bag – before leaving just 7p in the honesty box – and has since forced the mortified woman to pay up.
Leah O’Brien runs Emsworth Sweets from two sheds outside her home in Emsworth, Hampshire, selling affordable cakes and treats.
The set-up includes a mini shed offering 10p items aimed at local children’s pocket money.
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But the businesswoman was left stunned when she spotted an adult visitor helping themselves to her stock while watching the live feed from one of the Ring cameras she uses to monitor the sheds.
When she checked the till moments after the culprit left, she found just 7p – despite the haul being worth £30.50.
Describing the “unfortunate incident”, she said: “Someone came in and was putting a lot of stuff in her bag and I thought to myself, ‘that’s a lot of sweets’.
“It was just two coins she put in.”
Shocked at what she saw, Leah decided to play detective and catch the thief.
Within just an hour, after doing some digging, she had a name for the sweet-toothed criminal.
She confronted them and they were forced to pay back in full.
She said: “I get an alert that is literally telling me exactly what is happening on my doorstep.
“So I was able to go straight onto my footage.
“I did some research and within the hour, I had someone here to pay for what had been taken.”
With prices kept deliberately low, Leah told Need To Know there is no margin for loss.
The June incident was the eighth time Leah has been targeted, with more than £100 stolen across all incidents, although she has always managed to recover the money.
Theft threatens to make the whole venture unsustainable.
She said: “My favourite things at the moment is when they open the door and they [the kids] see what’s inside.
“Look of joy on people’s faces and hearing the kids go ‘Oh my goodness’, which is amazing.”
Leah describes her camera set-up as “one step down from having a shop”, as it allows her to keep an eye on everything without physically standing over customers.
She said: “It’s such a good security system for what I do, because otherwise my losses would be ridiculous.
“I wouldn’t even be going because I couldn’t do it.”
The cameras also act as a deterrent, with most people in the area aware that the sheds are monitored.
In a separate incident last year, a well-known local male offender was named by multiple members of the community, resulting in the stolen items being returned that same evening.
The details Leah gathered at the time helped police connect the him to a string of thefts from a nearby shop, leading to his arrest.
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