EXCLUSIVE: Royal aide banned by Fortnum and Mason – known as late Queen’s favourite department store – as she’s caught on camera ‘stealing bracelet and trying to sneak out through a side exit’

A trusted royal aide has been caught shoplifting from luxury department store Fortnum and Mason, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Guards reportedly discovered a bracelet in the woman’s handbag after challenging her as she tried to leave through a side exit. Instead of alerting the police, they warned she would be kicked out if she stepped foot in the store again.

The assistant was ‘checked’ at the time because she allegedly helped herself to making samples during a previous visit. Sources told this newspaper that her royal connection is known to Fortnum staff.

The 316-year-old Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly is known as the late Queen’s favorite shop and has a long and close relationship with the Royal Family. The store holds two Royal Warrants. One was granted by Queen Elizabeth, the other by Charles.

Fortnum’s is best known as a supplier of tasty food and drinks, especially baskets, and also sells other luxury goods.

The assistant was observed during her most recent visit to the second floor – the “Georgian-inspired beauty floor” – by security personnel wearing body cameras. It is understood she then left the floor and walked down a flight of stairs towards the side exit on Duke Street, opposite an art gallery.

When she was arrested, she allegedly claimed there had been a misunderstanding, but was told the theft had been caught on film. Sources said the white security tag had been removed from the bracelet.

Asked about the incident last night, a spokesman for Fortnum and Mason said: ‘No comment.’ Buckingham Palace also declined to comment.

It is understood the aide was accompanied by another royal aide who was unaware of the theft.

The woman involved is described by colleagues as ‘completely loyal’ and indispensable to the Royal House.

According to sources, the incident in September caused ‘surprise and disappointment’ within the Royal House.

However, she has remained in her position and no disciplinary action is expected.

Britain’s shoplifting epidemic has been highlighted in the past two months by a Mail on Sunday campaign calling on police, prosecutors and courts to take much tougher action against offenders. Asda chairman Lord Stuart Rose has said: ‘Theft has been minimized and decriminalised. It’s just not seen as a crime anymore.’

Thieves are taking advantage of lax policing, a ‘soft’ justice system and the fact that some store workers are told not to tackle shoplifters for fear they could be attacked by the criminals – or even prosecuted themselves for intervening.

Retailers say they lost more than £1 billion worth of stolen goods last year, forcing them to raise prices at a time when consumers are already struggling with rising food costs.

Last year it was reported that Fortnum had apparently lost confidence in the police to catch shoplifters, instead calling in private investigators and pursuing his own prosecutions.

The store’s ties to the Royals date back to its founding. William Fortnum was a footman in Queen Anne’s household and started the business from legitimate advantage.

Queen Anne’s insistence on having new candles every night resulted in large quantities of half-used wax, which Fortnum promptly resold. He also had a side business as a grocer. He convinced his landlord, Hugh Mason, to become his associate, and they set up the first Fortnum & Mason store in Mason’s small shop on St James’s Market in 1707.

Queen Elizabeth, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (L-R) look at their baskets after receiving gifts at Fortnum and Mason food store in London, March 1, 2012

What successive monarchs bought at the store is largely a mystery. But in 1855, Queen Victoria asked that 250 pounds of concentrated beef tea be sent “without delay” to Florence Nightingale in Crimea.

It was during Victoria’s reign that the store began displaying the royal arms on its packaging. The luxury was popular with her son and successor Edward VII. Marmalade, exotic fruit, tea and coffee were regularly delivered to his London home, Marlborough House. The Queen Mother had clothes made for Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret by a designer from Fortnum. She reportedly drank a cup of Fortnum’s Earl Gray tea every morning for breakfast.

As an adult, Princess Margaret was a regular visitor and was often seen eating smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, washed down with whiskey at her own table in the store’s Fountain restaurant.

Last year it emerged that part of the £900,000 cash donation that King Charles, then Prince of Wales, received from a Qatari sheikh had been stuffed into Fortnum and Mason carrier bags.

There was no suggestion that either party had done anything illegal.

Middle-class ‘Swipers’ are fueling the shoplifting crisis

The spike in shoplifting is partly driven by middle-class offenders walking away without paying if items are not properly scanned at self-service checkouts, experts say.

Criminologist Emmeline Taylor said high-earning thieves often don’t consider shoplifting a crime.

“The number of middle-class shoplifters is growing, and has done so since the introduction of self-service checkouts,” she told The Times. “They wouldn’t steal using any other technique, they’re not interested in chocolate in their pants or a piece of steak in their jacket.”

Professor Taylor, professor of criminology at City, University of London, has coined the acronym Swipers to describe the new phenomenon of affluent shoplifters. It stands for ‘apparently well-intentioned customers who regularly engage in shoplifting’.

Professor Taylor added: ‘At some point the dials change and middle-class shoppers go from opportunistic shoplifters to thinking ‘that felt pretty good’.

‘The next phase is that they become alert to the possibilities and then look for them.’

Professor Taylor said Swipers would often play on the fact that they were middle class if they were caught. “They’ll say, ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ and they’ll have all these excuses ready.

‘They won’t think of themselves as thieves, they will think they have cheated the system. ‘

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