A serial shoplifter who made it her “full-time” job to commit £500,000 worth of fraud against high-street retailers has been jailed for 10 years.
Narinder Kaur, 54, from Cleverton, Wiltshire, travelled all over the country to deceive well-known retailers like Debenhams, John Lewis, House of Fraser and TK Maxx into refunding her for items she had stolen.
The largest single fraud was committed against Boots, where Kaur received £60,787 in refunds from seven UK stores, from July 2015 to February 2019, despite having only spent £5,172 with the retailer during that same period.
She also received £42,853 in refunds from Debenhams – having only spent £3,681 during a four-year period – and £33,131 in refunds from John Lewis stores, including in Milton Keynes, Watford, Chester and Nottingham, having only spent £5,290 between August 2015 and December 2018.
She also visited several Monsoon stores in the West Midlands, South Wales and Thames Valley where she claimed £23,000 more in refunds than in payments to the stores.
Homesense was also defrauded of £18,000, TK Maxx of some £14,500 and Homebase of £3,200.
A ‘tsunami of dishonesty’
Sentencing Kaur at Gloucester Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Ian Lawrie KC said her crimes were “stubbornly persistent and on a near-Olympian scale”.
“You indulged in a veritable tsunami of dishonesty and deceit on a varied assortment of victims,” the judge said.
“There seems to have been no limit to your offending, all of which was conducted with resolute persistence, unburdened by restraint or inhibition.
Pic: West Mercia Police/PA
“The scale of the offending was on a near-industrial scale. The overall value of the offending has been valued at £500,000.”
The court heard Kaur was seen on CCTV entering stores, taking items from the shelves and taking them to the tills as if they had been previously purchased.
Gareth Weetman, prosecuting, alleged that Kaur relied on the goodwill of cashiers or store managers by telling them sob stories about sick relatives in order to commit her crimes.
Kaur at the tills in an M&S store. Pic: West Mercia Police/PA
During two police searches of her home, around £150,000 in cash was found hidden away, as well as stolen goods.
Kaur was previously convicted by a jury of 26 charges, including fraud, possessing and transferring criminal property and perverting the course of justice.
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She was also found to have previously lied to a magistrates’ court by producing false documents to avoid being convicted of speeding offences and to a crown court in a bid to relax her bail conditions.