A brazen female shoplifter has been captured on CCTV using her extremely short skirt as a unique distraction tactic to steal up to £1,000 worth of jewellery.

Video footage taken at an independent shop in Weymouth, Dorset showed the moment the thief, dressed in a short green dress, appeared to deliberately bend down to the lower shelves and flash her bottom, leaving staff members shocked.

Shopkeeper Ian Lambert, 62, said he had initially felt like he needed to look away from the woman for fear of being branded a pervert.

When he checked CCTV footage later he discovered she used the unusual technique to fill her bag with items including rings, necklaces and commemorative coins.

He said: 'This woman came in the store with a very short green mini dress.

'Every time she bent over to look at something on the bottom shelves her dress would ride up. I didn't want to be seen looking at her as I would be the one who would be called a pervert.

'We now know that every time she bent over she was filling her bag with some of the items off the shelves.

'On her way out she even had the cheek to thank staff and apologise for not buying something on this occasion.'

Mr Lambert said the small business is still in the process of calculating how much money they lost as a result of the scam, with the stolen items all belonging to individual sellers. 

Describing the extent of devastation caused by the theft, he added:  It's not us she stole from. It's normal people trying to make an honest living.

'You could say that it was a fantastic idea by her to distract staff in that way but you just have to have the nerve to do it.'

The following day, Mr Lambert put up dozens of flyers in a bid to identity the shoplifter and to warn other businesses, but many of them were taken down.

He added: 'We really have a shoplifting epidemic in this country and there are no consequences for the people that do it. If shop owners try and stop it then they are the ones who get in trouble.

'I plastered flyers all over the town but many of them seem to have been taken down. I guess people want to protect her identity.' 

Mr Lambert said he did not report the incident to the police as he claimed they had not helped previously. 

It comes as the number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales has passed half a million for the first time, figures released in April showed.

An astonishing 516,971 offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per cent from 429,873 in 2023.

The figure is the highest since current police records began 22 year ago in 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The ONS said that shoplifting offences had witnessed a 'sharp rise' since the Covid-19 pandemic, with it estimated that the real figures of theft unknown as a result of many shopkeepers fearing it is 'pointless' to report offences to police.  

Meanwhile, four fifths of retailers have reported being robbed in the past year, a survey from the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) found.

Bira's chief executive, Andrew Goodacre, said the ONS figures represented a ‘deeply troubling milestone’ that confirmed what the organisation’s members had been saying for months.

‘The impact on independent retailers is awful,’ he added.

‘The stock they are losing represents a loss of their savings, as well as a loss of profits. As one retailer said to us recently: “It is like being burgled every week, and nobody should have to put up with that”.’

MPs have also warned that Britain could be set to witness a shoplifting and burglar 'crime wave' amid plans to scrap short prison sentences. 

Major reforms set to be published this week as part of the government-commissioned Sentencing Review by former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke are expected to recommend scrapping most sentences of up to a year.

It would mean burglars, shoplifters and those convicted of low-level assault would not face jail time – with the reforms aimed at tackling prison overcrowding.

The report is expected to provide a blueprint for the Sentencing Bill, which will be introduced to Parliament this summer.

The recommendations are set to include replacing the majority of year-long sentences with community work or suspended sentences.

Dorset Police were contacted for comment.