University newspaper gives students a step-by-step guide to shoplifting

Student activists from Queen Mary College, University of London, have produced a 'guide to shoplifting' in their university paper and have handed out 9,000 copies at demonstrations. The Art Of Shoplifting’ urges cash-strapped students to ignore any moral concerns and follow its step-by-step stealing techniques.

Top tips include how to avoid CCTV and the best ways to plead your innocence of caught. ‘If possible, you should always have some money on you when intending to shoplift because if you’ve got none, its rather hard to argue that to steal the item was a spontaneous decision,’ claims the guide.



It adds: ‘If the cops do arrive, its a good idea to act scared s******* because they may assume you’re a first offender and not bother to check your record. Don’t antagonise the filth. It is their personal discretion as to how bad you get busted.’

Trade association the British Retail Consortium branded the guide, published in new student newspaper The Paper, ‘extremely irresponsible, if not illegal’. But joint editor Bue Rubner Hansen insisted the piece was ‘satirical’.