The security guards have the whole place fenced off like a crime scene. Periodically, a manager walks to the edge of the cordon and genuinely utters the immortal line to the waiting crowd: ‘Nothing to see here. Move along now.’
The assembled throng – entirely comprised of young men, most in hats or hoodies – have little intention of moving on. They are not menacing but there is, nonetheless, a sense of repressed confrontation.
We may be in the throes of a shoplifting epidemic but this lot are not here to pilfer. They’re here in this corner of Britain’s largest shopping mall
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