How man went from stealing daily to helping others

A former shoplifter who stole goods worth up to £1,000 a day to fuel his drug addiction says his life has been turned around by a support scheme.

Rhys Davies from Dudley said his issues with substance abuse began during the Covid-19 pandemic when he lost his ability to work and what had been social drug use became more serious.

"Life was very chaotic back then," he said. "Everything revolved around my drug addiction."

His need to access Class A drugs led him to become, in his own words, a "prolific offender" - but now he is one of hundreds of people across the West Midlands to have benefitted from the Offending 2 Recovery scheme.

While Davies was able to slip into shops unnoticed at first, the habit "soon spiralled into constant retail crime" as he could "never satisfy" the addiction.

"I was stealing up to £1,000 of goods every single day, maybe more," he said.

That changed when he was approached by a police officer offering him a place on the Offending 2 Recovery scheme - an offer that led to help with his addiction and safe accommodation.

Davies now helps promote the scheme and said he hoped he had gone from being "a drain on the system to hopefully contributing towards it".

Without the scheme, he said: "I'd probably be sat over there begging outside Greggs again".

The programme targets the causes of prolific offending, including drug and alcohol addiction and offers stable housing support and tailored rehabilitation plans.

Launched in Birmingham in 2018, it has now expanded into Coventry, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton and is currently helping more than 200 people with plans to expand to Sandwell to cover the entire West Midlands Police area.

Dean Fraser has been accessing support through the Offending 2 Recovery programme in Wolverhampton for just over four months, after being arrested in March.

"It's best thing that's ever happened in my life," he said.

For three years he had issues with alcohol and crack cocaine and was spending hundreds of pounds on them every month.

"At the time I was in a bad place," he said, explaining how he had turned to shoplifting to pay back debts to friends and feed his addiction.

Fraser is now living in a dry house and said the people on the programme "showed me the tools how to deal with my addiction".

"I appreciate life better now," he said.

"I was blaming other people, but all along I was to blame."

The programme is supported by a number of agencies and over the last five years the office of the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has contributed more than £500,000 to its costs.

Research carried out by the PCC's office found that 70% of retail crime was carried out by people with addiction issues.

PCC Simon Foster said: "Addiction drives shop theft, and anti-social behaviour.

"By supporting vulnerable people to turn their lives around, we don't just transform their futures – we protect our local businesses, reduce the number of victims of crime and keep people, families and local communities safe and secure."

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, external, X, external and Instagram, external.