NOT ANYMORE –
June 4, 2025 – For decades Keeley Knowles’ life consisted of shoplifting thousands of pounds worth of goods to fuel her heroin addiction.
Previously known as “Birmingham’s most prolific shoplifter”, Ms Knowles had been to jail 28 times but is now 18 months clean and on a mission to give addicts hope.
“I have no doubt in my mind that I would have died,” she said. “I thought I was unfixable.”
Her saving grace, she explained, was West Midlands Police’s Offending to Recovery programme, which is being expanded into Coventry, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
The Offending 2 Recovery programme started work in 2018 in Erdington, Birmingham, in response to research that revealed addiction to drugs drove as much as 50% of all acquisitive crime in the area.
The findings also estimated 70% of shop theft was committed by people struggling with addiction to heroin and crack cocaine.
