Richard Madeley discusses shoplifting arrest as he claims ‘it’s easy to forget to pay for things’

Richard was arrested in 1994 for allegedly failing to pay for items on two occasions in a Tesco supermarket in Manchester, but was found not guilty by a jury as he claimed he couldn’t remember the incident

Richard Madeley has opened up on his shoplifting arrest back in the 1990s as he claimed it is “easy to forget to pay for things”.

The 63-year-old was co-hosting Good Morning Britain alongside Kate Garraway when they began discussing the topic of giving security guards in supermarkets and shops more powers to apprehend shoplifters. As Kate asked viewers to send in their opinions on the controversial plans, which included in-store cells to detain offenders, she said there was a “scourge of shoplifting” which was "causing so many problems”.

Veteran broadcaster Richard then waded into the argument, as he discussed his arrest - and subsequent trial - for allegedly shoplifting in 1994. He was arrested for allegedly failing to pay for items, including champagne, on two occasions at a Tesco supermarket in Manchester, but he was later acquitted by a jury as he claimed he couldn’t remember and had simply forgotten to pay for the goods.

“I know from my own experience that it's very easy to forget to pay for stuff. And woah, just a minute a store detective, would you really accept a store detective putting you in cuffs? I mean you would say ‘Woah hold on! I've just made an honest mistake, let me explain.’ There's a lot to go out there,” Richard fumed.

Last year, he spoke at length about the impact the arrest and trial had on his career, and was thankful for the support he had from his wife Judy Finnegan, and his former employers. “Thank God Twitter wasn't around then. But the whole thing was so self-evidently b****cks, that my not paying was an oversight,” he told The Sun, as he claimed his arrest was “leaked by someone at Tesco”.

He said he didn’t fear he was “going to get cancelled”, and his bosses at Granada Television stood by him, as he insisted the case "was rubbish”. Richard recalled: “We carried on as normal. I went to Crown Court, my lawyer told me to get in front of a jury so people could see it was an obvious oversight. So that's what I did. And I was absolutely acquitted.”

At the time, Richard spoke about the arrest and trial alongside Judy on This Morning, and said the whole experience was “surreal”. However, he did confess he had to watch what he said for fear of getting “cancelled”, as “when you're on camera you're only one sentence away, and you can so easily get it wrong”.

In an interview with The Guardian in 2008, Richard said the incident happened by mistake, as he had simply forgotten to pay for the champagne. “I was just not concentrating. I put the food through the till, I forgot to take the champagne out. It was, I can handle anything, I can juggle eight balls in the air, and actually I came a horrible cropper. I can joke about it now.”

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