Please don’t call Martin Gaunt a have-a-go hero or a vigilante. He absolutely hates that. It is not who he is, it’s not who he wants to be.
The mild-mannered shopkeeper is not looking for trouble and he doesn’t want to be seen as some kind of folk saviour.
As he pads around his Happy Piranha gift shop in Truro, his gilet zipped up against the winter chill, Martin says that the last thing he intended was to find himself featured in newspapers or on TV news bulletins, though he has been on both recently.
He is simply a high street trader who got so fed up with the ferocious amount of shoplifting at his premises – and the lack of action from the police – that he decided to do something about it himself.
For the past two years, Martin has been carrying out citizen’s arrests in a bid to deter offenders from targeting his store. With the help of his 33-year-old twin sons Sam and Joshua and occasionally their younger brother Isaac, 26 – all of whom work alongside him in the family business – he estimates they have carried out more than 50 citizen’s arrests of putative Piranha thieves.
The Gaunts defy criminals by ‘super-politely’ approaching them once they have left the shop, sharing their suspicions that they have stolen goods in their possession, while Martin informs them that, using his powers of arrest under Section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, he has the right to detain them until the police arrive.
Of course, it doesn’t always go well. The police don’t always turn up for a start.
And when they do, Martin is sometimes made to feel that he is the one committing the crime. ‘They can be more worried about upsetting and offending the shoplifters than actually dealing with the situation and helping me,’ he said. And yes, there has been violence.
For the past two years, Martin Gaunt has been carrying out citizen’s arrests in a bid to deter offenders from targeting his store
When the police turn up, Martin is sometimes made to feel that he is the one committing the crime
He is just one of the millions of British shopkeepers who are battling a national epidemic of shoplifting
‘I’m 62 years old. I don’t want to be rolling around on the cobbles at my age, but it has happened,’ says Martin. He has been punched in the ribs a few times and suffered bruising to his back, while he and his sons have been threatened with broken bottles.
Yet when push comes to shove and fists are raised, he is pragmatic to the end. ‘I can take a punch to the face but I will cover the vitals with my hands, because I don’t want to go down,’ he says, wincing as we walk past a display stand laden with soft toys.
The Happy Piranha is a cheerful shop, selling collectibles and homemade candles, boiled sweets in glass jars, greetings cards, nautical-themed pottery for the tourists and a large collection of Japanese anime characters. It should be a place of good cheer and twinkling trinkets, but like so many retail outlets today, it has become a battle zone instead.
For Martin Gaunt is just one of the millions of British shopkeepers who are battling a national epidemic of shoplifting. Offending is currently at a 20-year high with an average increase in customer theft of 25 per cent in Scotland and 29 per cent in England and Wales, while here in Devon and Cornwall, the local rise is a staggering 37 per cent year on year. ‘I don’t understand why we’re allowing it to happen, because it feeds into bigger, nastier crimes,’ says Gaunt.
He believes that shoplifting is not a minor crime but a significant contributor to societal issues, including the influx of drug dealers into city centres and a rise in anti-social behaviour. ‘And in my case, it’s not about someone nicking a £20 teddy bear from me, it is a much bigger issue than that.’
It is his experience that the majority of thefts are committed by people with alcohol or drug addictions.
‘They steal stuff from us that they don’t need or want. This is not about poverty – we don’t sell anything that anybody needs to live. They take from us because they want to sell it on for cash to buy booze or drugs. Usually drugs.’
In Truro and elsewhere, most shoplifting is done by repeat offenders who are emboldened by their success, encouraged by the lack of punishment and fuelled by a misplaced sense of entitlement.
Martin believes that shoplifting is not a minor crime but a significant contributor to societal issues
‘They seem to think there is no consequence, no cost, no price. There’s even a belief nowadays that shoplifting is no longer a crime. So what I have done is taken a stance,’ he says. ‘Look, I’m not about chopping hands off, but I have tried to show it is a crime and there is a consequence.’
His tactics have been a success. Since he began his citizen’s arrests, incidences of shoplifting at the Happy Piranha have gone down nearly 90 per cent. However, that doesn’t mean thieves aren’t going elsewhere to steal. Shoplifting costs Truro over £1million every year and brings undesirable elements into the city centre, including drug dealers and organised crime.
Until he took action himself, Gaunt estimates that shoplifting was costing his business nearly 10 per cent of its annual £750,000 turnover. Margins at the Happy Piranha are tight; the business doesn’t always make a profit. He believes that if he had let it carry on and done nothing, he would have gone bust. And he feels aggrieved that despite everything, the local police would certainly prefer that he did nothing.
‘They regard me as a nuisance, a pain in the arse. But I’m at a point in my life where I have given up wanting to be rich and famous, and I just want life to be fair and reasonable. I’ve had a gutful of it. I really have. I don’t care how many times the police tell me to shut up and go away, I want something done.’
He showed me a long and tortuous email correspondence with a local police inspector in which the two men debate (that’s a super polite way of putting it) issues such as whether or not ‘low-level shoplifting’ – goods worth under £200 – is indictable and therefore within citizen’s arrest rules. The inspector thought not. Martin went all the way to the Home Office seeking clarification on this matter – the Neighbourhood Crime Unit confirmed it was indictable – but even now the inspector still insists it is ‘a grey area’. That’s not the only Kafkaesque situation Martin Gaunt’s crusade against shoplifting has encountered.
The police tell retailers to dial 999 if they see a crime being committed, but when they do so they are told to call 101 if the perpetrator has fled. ‘You can be hanging on the line for an hour,’ recalls Martin.
Sometimes the police refuse to search the suspects, sometimes it goes the other way. When a chief inspector visited the Happy Piranha in 2023, the store was robbed while he was there. ‘It was comic book, it really was,’ recalls Martin.
When the officer searched the shoplifter he found a significant amount of cash, unboxed prescription drugs, knuckle dusters and the fact that he was out on probation for robbery. Which all feeds into Martin’s theory that shoplifting is all part of a bigger picture and that more police engagement would improve the quality of life in British towns.
The Gaunts defy criminals by ‘super-politely’ approaching them once they have left the shop
A 2024 report found that Norfolk was the best-performing police force for catching and prosecuting shoplifters – a crime that has risen exponentially during the cost-of-living crisis – while the county’s rates of burglary, car thefts and criminal damage have also plummeted.
This has been achieved by a back-to-basics approach by the local police chief and a robust policy of catching and fining shoplifters. ‘It works, because if they don’t pay the fines they can be prosecuted,’ says Martin. ‘At least it is some form of deterrent.’ Meanwhile, a spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said they are committed to working with retailers and ensuring that criminals face justice.
Happy Piranha is situated at Pydar Street, a curving pedestrianised thoroughfare lined with listed buildings and handsome Georgian architecture. Once upon a time the street was lined with the fine homes of merchants and sea captains, now it features the usual modern cityscape: a TK Maxx, a branch of the malodorous Lush, a New Look outlet crammed with polyester dresses.
The Gaunt business comprises three outlets: the gift shop itself, a cafe used by community groups with tables outside where they sell ice creams in summer and a plant shop called Green Geeks.
Gaunt employs eight staff, a mixture of full and part-time workers. In his office in the stockroom upstairs, six security cameras silently patrol the premises and the street outside, alongside the computer where Martin studies the intricacies of retail law and doggedly puts forward his case.
He has met the Police Commissioner of Devon and Cornwall, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (‘she’s got a good understanding’) and assorted local police officers in the pursuit of justice. He is a thoughtful, articulate and reasonable man.
He doesn’t expect the cops to thunder down Pydar Street mob-handed every time some kid steals a gobstopper from him, he doesn’t want everyone locked up in prison. Yet, like many shopkeepers, he is frustrated by the slowness of the police responses and what he sees as their general lack of interest in retail crime.
In addition, he feels there are inadequate follow-up investigations and a lack of deterrents. In the UK last year, less than a fifth of recorded shoplifting offences resulted in a charge or summons, let alone a prosecution. This has left many shopkeepers in despair.
‘The problem is shoplifting has become a symptom of the breakdown we’ve been experiencing in society. It provides a fishing rod that feeds the worst in society.’
What he would like to see is better community engagement, consistent low-level enforcement, and reform within the police force to address these issues effectively. In the meantime, even as a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, he is on his own.
‘I know there is an element of danger involved in what I do, but there is also danger involved in doing nothing,’ says Martin Gaunt. ‘What am I supposed to do? Just give up and go home?’
The Gaunts of Truro have laid down the gauntlet. And for now, giving up and going home is not an option.