Theft child’s play for this Artful Dodger
TWELVE minutes is all it took for a boy — believed to be about six — to allegedly steal jewellery worth R120 000.
Had it not been for a criminal case and supporting CCTV footage, the story would sound impossible.
Jewellery store owner Andrew Christensen still cannot believe what happened and how efficient the thieves were.
The footage shows six people — three women, a man holding a baby, and the child — walking into Andrews Jewellers in the small KwaZulu-Natal coastal resort of Margate at 11:28am on Tuesday.
Christensen said the adults “seemed like a mother, a father and two sisters”.
“I was uneasy straightaway because the two sisters were trying on so many different items all over the shop. I was with them, but I made sure that I could see the other two [adults] at all times.” But he paid little at- tention to the children.
Twelve minutes later, the man and one of the women left with the children. Surveillance footage shows that, soon afterwards, the other two women leave, run to a waiting car and are driven away.
“They said they were going to go to the ATM to draw money to pay [for some of the jewellery]. I figured that they weren’t coming back. I looked around the store to check if anything was missing, but nothing was,” said Christensen. “I went to the back of the shop to have something to eat. Then I thought I would look around, because I still had this uneasy feeling.”
Christensen then noticed that a plastic container in which he keeps items brought in for repair or alterations was missing. A frantic search of the store revealed that the container was gone.
“It must have been that little boy, because I could see all the adults the whole time. I didn’t see him go to the back of the store, but there is no way one of the adults went behind there.
“At first I thought he was six years old, but having watched the CCTV footage, he looks like he could be even younger — maybe four or five,” said Christensen.
The stolen items included a diamond engagement ring, various necklaces and a 100year-old ring.
The police confirmed that a case had been opened, but said the suspects were still at large.
Dumisile Nala, national executive officer at Childline South Africa, said adults reg- ularly made children sell drugs or steal. “It is definitely a child-abuse issue. It’s bigger than a child doing this one thing because it has long-term implications for the child,” she said.
Ann Skelton, director of the Centre for Child Law at the University of Pretoria, said parents faced charges when a child was used to commit a crime. “Children have to be shown what is wrong and right. If parents are saying you should be doing [crime], it creates confusion ... It could set [children] up for being involved in criminal behaviour in the future,” said Skelton.