As the driving force behind a scheme to crack down on retail crime, Elaine Carey took on shoplifters and won. She talks to Women's Editor Christen Pears.

EVEN as a child, Elaine Carey loathed crime. One of a family seven children growing up in south-west Durham, money was often tight and her father, who owned a butcher's shop, worked long hours to provide for his family. When the shop was broken into, as it often was, Elaine remembers thinking how unfair it was. But it wasn't until 1992 that she had to opportunity to really tackle the problem.

Elaine was working for Marks & Spencer in Newcastle when Jack Straw, then shadow Home Secretary, made a comment about the city being the crime capital of the North. Like many others, she was outraged by the comment but had to admit that crime was rife.

"My daughter was just two at the time and I remember thinking that if the city was like that now, what would it be like in 20 years time. Something had to be done," she says.

A few months earlier, the police had joined forces with retailers to install CCTV in Newcastle city centre but this only served to push crime from the streets and into the stores.

"The thing I found hard to accept was that everyone kept saying that it was a victimless crime but we were seeing customers who were often elderly who had been robbed. It was a horrible thing to go through.

"Also, it acts as a kind of university for more serious crime. Shoplifters often go onto burglary or other crimes. We were aware of people who were wanted by Interpol for gun offences, which proved that there was a link between shoplifting and organised crime."

Retail theft costs the industry more than £2.1bn per annum and stores build the loss into their prices. This costs the average household an additional £90 per year on their shopping bills.

As an assistant financial manager, part of Elaine's job was tackle theft. shoplifting. She was sickened by some of the tactics the thieves employed - using their babies' buggies to conceal stolen goods, teaching their children how to steal - and was already working closely with local police when she was asked to become chairman of Newcastle Crime Prevention Panel. It was a challenge she relished.

"I thought we could either continue to deal with it the way we had, letting the police arrest them, have them go through the courts and then come back into the shops and steal again or we could be proactive," she explains.

M&S was already working on a database that would enable stores to share information about known offenders, but the panel's first success was the retail radio scheme. Stores in the city agreed to share intelligence and contact each other via radio if a known thief was heading in their direction.

They also introduced exclusion notices. More than 200 retailers signed up to the scheme and sent letters to 53 persistent offenders, banning them from entering their premises. Of the 53, only four re-offended.

The partnership's success began attracting attention elsewhere, although not all of it was positive. There were accusations of displacing crime from Newcastle to other towns and cities.

"We felt very strongly that we didn't want this to happen. It wasn't a very responsible way of dealing with the problem so we decided to start looking at a regional scheme."

In 1999, the North-East Retail Crime Partnership was launched and now covers more than 300 stores, 12 shopping centres and three police force areas across the region. There are more than 12,000 offenders on the database, which enables police and store detectives to tackle persistent, prolific thieves.

The partnership is extremely proactive and works with young offenders to help them recognise the consequences of their actions. There's also a roadshow that visits schools and raises awareness about shoplifting among youngsters.

The scheme has received national recognition but for Elaine, the personal highlight was winning the Marks & Spencer Volunteer of Year Award in 2001. Earlier this month, she made it through to the last ten in the Change Your World competition, run by Family Circle magazine.

The 46-year-old, who lives in Pity Me, near Durham, says: "When I first started doing it, my husband thought I was wasting my time. He said no-one would appreciate it and it wouldn't make any difference. He couldn't have been more wrong and now he sees what kind of impact it's had, he's really supportive, as are my employers.

"Marks & Spencer take their social responsibilities very seriously and they've been amazing. I think, in the beginning, it was only because I worked for them that people took me seriously and actually got behind the scheme."

Elaine now works at M&S's store in the MetroCentre and juggles her job with looking after her children, Helen, 12, and Andrew, eight. It can sometimes be difficult to fit in her work with the Retail Crime Partnership but it's something she believes in very strongly.

She says: "I've always admired the kind of people who work in hospices or raise money for charity. I haven't had that opportunity but I have been able to get people to work together for the common good.

"It if it was just one retailer, they wouldn't have much of an impact but with this, it's a partnership. There's a real sense of community spirit and together we're creating a better environment for everyone."