An alleged hardware shop thief who went to the police to complain about CCTV-image posters of him displayed in the store is now facing prosecution.
The posters, created by Neil Mackay, owner of Mackays of Cambridge, show the image of a man entering the shop, but with his face digitally obscured. In the poster he is dubbed 'Mr Magnet Man' because staff found him leaving the shop without having paid for a pricey magnet.

Similar posters are up in the store showing another man whom Mr Mackay also believed to be a shoplifter - 'Mr Socket Man'.

Mr Mackay told diyweek.net: "First of all we had Mr Socket Man. We got all the details on CCTV and his boss even rang me up and said, he's been stealing from you - he had confronted him and he'd admitted it."

The police were contacted but as no theft can be seen in the CCTV footage, because Mr Socket Man is closely surrounded by three other persons, they took no further action.

Mr Mackay went on: "The following week one of my staff said, 'I've just apprehended a man going out with a magnet and it'll be on the CCTV, but he ran away from me'. The police said there was not much chance of catching the guy, so out of frustration I created these posters, putting very broad blue and red lines across the faces, and put about half a dozen up around the shop."

He felt obliged to hide the men's identities, but thought "they would probably be able to identify themselves".

He went on: "Then I got a phone call from the police saying Mr Magnet Man had pitched up at Cambridge police station to complain [about the posters], saying that his children had been victimised at school and he'd been sacked from his job, but he denied that he was taking the magnet. The police came to us and got all the CCTV images. They said, 'do you want to prosecute', and I said, 'yes I do'.

"I understand that they are now going to prosecute Mr Magnet Man, but Mr Socket Man appears to have got away scot-free."

Mr Mackay has around 20 CCTV cameras in the shop. "We're very vulnerable because we're dealing in a lot of single items," he explained. "We try to make it difficult for people to hide in corners.

"The police's attitude is that shoplifting is a low level crime but you can't just ignore it. It needs to be treated as a social stigma that makes people think twice about it. People call it shoplifting but it's actually crime."

Mr Mackay said that initially the police had asked him to take the posters down but, now that they have seen the CCTV footag,e they remain in place, and he says he will continue to expose suspected shoplifters in this way.

"I've no problem at all doing it," he said. "I've asked customers and they say, good idea. They see it as a way of protecting themselves."