A senior officer in Greater Manchester police chased down a suspected shoplifter and helped his colleagues arrest him.
The incident happened when chief constable Sir Stephen Watson was attending a passing out parade for new recruits at Sedgley Park in Bury on Thursday (6).
He spotted officers in pursuit of a tracksuit-clad man near the park.
The man unsuspectingly ran in Watson's direction, and the veteran cop nabbed the suspect, leading to his arrest.
The suspect was arrested along with another man and woman, all in their 30s, on suspicion of theft from a store on Bury New Road.
Police were earlier alerted to a report of shoplifting during which a security guard was allegedly assaulted.
The police have released the footage of the incident to show Sir Stephen's involvement in the arrest.
Sir Stephen is among the most experienced senior officers in the country, having joined Lancashire Constabulary in 1988.
He was knighted in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours, in recognition of his long service to policing.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 530,643 reported shoplifting offences in the year to March, a 20 percent increase from the previous year.
Pharmacies are equally vulnerable to this menace, as was found in a recent survey by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
It found that around 9 in 10 pharmacies have seen a surge in incidents of shoplifting in the last year.
The survey found that 87 per cent had seen an increase in aggressive and intimidating behaviour towards pharmacy teams, while 22 per cent had even seen physical assaults on staff.
Pharmacies have warned that the potential theft of medicines, including controlled drugs, could have serious consequences for someone's health and may be being stolen for criminal gain.
Some medicines could be mixed, making dangerous concoctions, and theft from pharmacies is potentially a more serious criminal offence than common shoplifting.
