It seems the greenest fingers can also be the stickiest.
Britain’s garden centres are in the grip of a shoplifting epidemic, led – retailers say – by ‘well-to-do, middle-class women in nice cars’, rather than hardened criminals.
But the problem goes far beyond the odd pilfered pot plant, a new industry report reveals, with wax jackets, scented candles and designer soft toys among the items most frequently stolen.
Some individual thefts have cost retailers up to £6,000. The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) estimates the sector lost £16million to retail crime in the past year, and 71 per cent of members consider theft a
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