Early last year Paige Mengers began to fear that it was only a matter of time before robbers targeted her designer clothes boutique. Crime gangs, she noted, were systematically raiding stores selling ‘pre-loved’ Chanel and Hermes handbags worth thousands. ‘The same bags we sell,’ says Mrs Mengers. ‘I had a bad feeling we would be next.’
And so with growing unease, she set about fortifying the business she had worked tirelessly to build.
In her flagship boutique, Phoenix Style, in the Surrey town of Cobham, she installed the latest CCTV, along with anti-theft devices, including security cables for the bags, among them a second-hand £16,000 Hermes Birkin.
Like the shop’s priciest vintage wares, beat bobbies are rarities in Cobham, so Mrs Mengers paid for a private security firm to advise staff on crime prevention. Meanwhile a panic alarm linked to a police station was fitted at Phoenix’s sister store 13 miles away in Wimbledon Village, South West London. ‘The safety of my mainly female staff is a prime concern,’ she says.
Anxieties partly assuaged, her business continued to flourish. Then, last week, despite her best efforts and considerable financial outlay, Mrs Mengers’s worst fears were realised.
In the space of 24 hours both stores were targeted by the same two robbers, who used wire cutters to slice through cables and steal four bags worth more than £17,000 in total.
Staff called police immediately in both cases. A sales assistant would latter recall being rooted to the spot, shaking with terror. She was so traumatised by the raid that she has now quit her job.
To Mrs Mengers’s fury, neither Surrey Police nor the Metropolitan Police ‘showed the slightest interest’ – despite staff activating the panic alarm, which went unheeded, and making available pin-sharp CCTV footage of the robbers. So clear were their faces, she says, ‘they might as well have been on television reading the news’.
There was fingerprint evidence, too, and even a mobile phone photo taken by a van driver showing the two men escaping in a Fiat 500 getaway car, its number plate visible. Mrs Mengers, 53, says: ‘We had all the evidence the police needed on a plate.
‘But they said they couldn’t attend because it was shoplifting, not a robbery.
‘I pointed out that it’s hardly on a par with a child pinching sweets. In any case they didn’t bother sending anyone. We got a crime reference number, nothing else. It would have been reassuring for my female staff to see police take this seriously.
‘We keep hearing about these robbers being ruthless.
‘Who knows what would have happened had one of them tried to intervene?’
News of the raids came the same week a tech boss hit out at Surrey Police after they dropped an investigation into a break-in on his home within days.
Bebo founder Paul Birch said CCTV footage showed three thieves – at least one armed with a crowbar – smashing their way into his mansion in Surrey. They stole items worth £500,000, including a £6,000 Rolex watch and seven Chanel bags.
The family said officers took 12 hours to turn up after the raid on December 11, paused the investigation because of the Christmas break – and then dropped it due to lackof evidence.
Mrs Mengers says her case is another stark illustration of what she and many others see as the erosion of the social contract between police and public. ‘Our private security firm turned up immediately – but why aren’t the police protecting us?’ she says.
Certainly her words will resonate with store owners across Britain. What is more astonishing still about this case is not so much the police indifference as what happened next.
After Mrs Mengers posted a video on Instagram decrying the efforts of Surrey Police and asking the public to help her catch the culprits, she finally got a visit from two officers at 11.30am last Wednesday. ‘I said to them: ‘Why are you turning up now – two days late?’
Their reply left her dumbfounded. ‘It’s because you made a significant noise on social media,’ the officer told her.
Mrs Mengers says today: ‘So this is what it’s come to: you have to gather all the evidence yourself and then shame the police on social media before they decide to act.’
She gave the officers from Surrey a witness statement, but not before making her displeasure plain. Her anger, the officers conceded, was understandable.
Still, at least they turned up – eventually. The Metropolitan Police, who cover Wimbledon, have yet to budge and have shown no indication of doing so. But they say ‘the investigation is ongoing’.
Cobham has been called Surrey’s answer to Beverly Hills. As well as footballers – it is close to Chelsea’s training ground – it has been home to many Hollywood stars over the years, among them actors Antonio Banderas, Aaron Eckhart and Stanley Tucci.
Last week locals were full of speculation about the theft. ‘It makes you wonder how long they had been watching the place,’ says a middle-aged woman enjoying a coffee with a friend in a nearby café. ‘The robbers must have stuck out like sore thumbs around here – it is terribly genteel.’ Yet the possibility of being recognised didn’t seem to bother the two men. Neither covered their faces.
They struck at just before 5.30pm as the store was about to close. As one held the door open, the other swaggered inside and pulled out a pair of wire cutters.
He knew exactly what he wanted – a much sought-after £6,000 Chanel classic double flap bag in black caviar leather.
Ignoring everything else, including jewellery and the more valuable Birkin – said to be the world’s most desirable handbag – he was in and out in ten seconds.
Terrified staff were left screaming: ‘My god, my god.’ Mrs Mengers wasn’t in the store at the time but called police to vent her anger when they refused to attend.
When she received a call back she assumed they had changed their minds. ‘But they simply asked if I wanted to make a complaint,’ she says.
‘I lost my temper and said, ‘No, I want you to investigate!’ But they said they could only handle a complaint.’
It was at this point that Mrs Mengers posted her video on Instagram, which has been viewed nearly 400,000 times. In it, she says: ‘This was not just an attack on our business, but on the sense of safety that we and our community hold dear.’
Addressing her local MP, Dr Ben Spencer, she says elsewhere in the video: ‘As a diligent business owner who pays her business rates every month on time, I have one question for you. Why did Surrey Police refuse to come and help? All they could give us was a reference number.
‘My staff who are members of your community were scared and shaken. Why was there no action taken to reassure them? I hope that as a community, we can strive to restore a sense of safety that has been stolen from us.’
Hours after the video appeared, the same two men struck at the Wimbledon Village store. Once again they made no attempt to hide their faces and this time they didn’t even bother to wear gloves.
Mrs Mengers said: ‘They were seen walking up and down outside the store and evidently waited for one of the two women on duty to nip out to get a coffee before they went inside.’
To her horror the woman left inside recognised them immediately from the CCTV images shared by Ms Mengers. ‘She was in a terrible state,’ she says.
CCTV footage shows her behind the counter reaching down to press the panic button. She then scrambles to dial 999 on her mobile phone. As we now know, both actions were futile.
Meanwhile, as an elderly couple pass the shop oblivious to the drama inside, the raider cuts through wires and steals three bag, two more Chanel bags and a Celine worth a total of £11,000.
To his credit, Dr Spencer, Conservative MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, took up the case immediately, liaising with police, Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner and local councillors.
He says: ‘It’s obvious that this was a targeted crime which has caused real distress and concern.’
Surrey Police says a ‘full and thorough investigation’ has now begun. It added in a statement: ‘We know shoplifting has a significant impact on businesses and can leave shop staff feeling fearful and vulnerable – particularly in the case of female staff.
‘It is a priority for us to robustly pursue any offenders and get them before the courts.’
But Mrs Mengers says that she has read of dozens of similar crimes on social media and worries ‘it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt. Only then perhaps will police wake up to this scourge’.
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