SHOPLIFTERS will soon be banned from stores at a retail park following fears that persistent thieves, banned from a nearby town centre would change their targets.
More than 30 prolific thieves were banned from entering about 60 stores in Middlesbrough under the town's exclusion notice scheme earlier this year. Anyone defying the ban will be classed as a trespasser and can be arrested.
Security officials at Teesside Park fear the thieves may start targeting there instead and a dozen well-known stores want exclusion notices for persistent shoplifters.
Alex Norris, Teesside Park's security manager, said that businesses at the park were really keen to get the scheme off the ground and that it would send a message to shoplifters not to target the park's stores.
PC Mick Cook, from the Safer Shopping Scheme, which runs the scheme, said 11 shops from Teesside Park had signed up, with another two waiting, making 70 stores part of the scheme in total.
He said: "The exclusion notice scheme is the best thing we have implemented to combat shoplifting."
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