DESIGNER BAG…LADY –

Feb. 4, 2021 – As an attractive, Caucasian, middle-class woman, I’m hardly the archetypical shoplifter. To my knowledge, I’ve never been suspected, which I’m certain is down to how I look, rather than my smooth sleight of hand. Raised in a middle-class home in Bristol, state-educated and with myriad opportunities handed on a plate, I was happy, loved and privileged. I occasionally stole items of little worth from shops or supermarkets when I was 11, but didn’t everyone? It was a phase I assumed I’d leave behind in adulthood. But at 25, my stealing vamped up to a full-blown addiction.

I was an editor in book publishing but felt creatively stunted and unfulfilled. I craved adventure and change – the office job was stable, but the sense of monotony I felt each day was clawing away at my insides. I took a career sabbatical, got a teaching qualification and left for Italy to teach English and forget my troubles – cliché, I know. It was the age-old antidote to the fact that I wasn’t sure who I was anymore, I felt untethered. I’d broken up with my boyfriend and I hadn’t spoken to my mother in about nine months, after she left my dad from another man, and effectively abandoned our family. I was troubled, suffering quietly from what I now know to be post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), from the betrayal and gradual erosion of our family unit.

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