Louie ... public enemy number one!

To the shoplifting fraternity he is public enemy number one. A grass. The man who hands them in to police, who doesn't accept that it is their right to get away with stealing.

Death threats against him have now reached double figures.

Louie Anderson is the scourge of shoplifters' lives. He is the eyes and ears that patrol Colchester town centre ready to tackle the sharp end of retail crime.

He said: "It surprises me how many thieves there are in Colchester. You've got the opportunists who come into town without much money but will take something on the spur of the moment.

"It could be schoolkids who are after the latest trend. "

Must-haves at the moment are Beanies or anything to do with South Park, the cult cartoon show.

"I stopped a child the other day and he had eight South Park key rings on his belt."

The juveniles are easier to deal with. Once they get caught they are usually too scared to do it again. And word filters around school or college that there is this guy called Louie who stopped little Johnny stealing CDs last week. That will make the other kids think twice.

If the short, sharp shock doesn't work, they are inevitably the ones that will become criminals in adulthood.

Then there are the career shoplifters. A hard-core of 20 or so junkies who steal for a living, to sell stuff, mainly clothes, on to pay for their drug habits.

"At the end of the day I catch them as often as I can so they go through the justice system and get incarcerated."

At just 5ft 7ins tall, 34 years old, softly spoken and articulate, Louie is not your obvious heavy. But mess with him and he will stand his ground. An ex soldier with the 1st Battalion Royal Anglians, when they were based at Colchester Garrison, he is physically fit and a dab hand at Korean karate.

In 1992 he left the Army rank of corporal. "I decided I wanted to run my own life."

He became a security guard employed on contract at Marks and Spencer and worked there for six years until moving to the Virgin Megastore in Culver Square. There he set his sights on security management and after being promoted, two months ago he decided to go it alone and start his own business.

He spends his days watching, clocking everything as he steadfastly paces the busy shopping streets. An earpiece is hidden under a woollen hat and he is linked by radio to the CCTV monitoring suite and many stores.

He is contracted, on an hourly basis, to several smaller stores, including a popular toy shop and a busy gift store. They are the ones that cannot afford to spend £40,000 a year on a security team. The ones, he argues, that suffer most.

"If they get trouble I can be there in under a minute. They get people coming in and intimidating staff. They are there to concentrate on selling and I am there to concentrate on the theft problem."

Most shops primarily want the stock back. Louie has to think on his feet, rely on instinct. Does he confront them so they drop the stolen goods and run off, or trail them covertly hoping he will catch the thief as well?

Most career criminals come into town and stay in all day, running back and forth storing their booty in a car parked on the outskirts or dumping it at home.

"The skill is to be able to read people. I walk along and look at how they are dressed, how they are behaving, if I recognise a face. I look for the tell tale signs, the gaunt face and shallow eyes of drug users. I see if someone looks out of place. I will make a mental note of their face. If they are in a store I will watch them."

But then at other times they could be watching him. When he is off duty, out with his mates, or buying his groceries at the local supermarket.

"Someone you stop and get the police to arrest one day, could be standing next to me in the queue at Asda the next day.

"Colchester is a small town and you know you will see them again. I always have to be professional and make it clear what I am doing and why I am doing it. I tell them that they are stealing and that's why I've been called in. So hopefully when I see them in Asda they are not going to through food at me."

It doesn't always work that way. Some people are not so understanding. After all he is taking away their livelihood.

Louie has had three broken noses. But he doesn't let the fear of reprisals haunt him. Sharing tales of how he was spat at in the street or shouted at in front of his six-year-old boy, with the town's other security staff can help. They can laugh it off.

"You just have to stand your ground. No amount of reasoning is going to change their attitudes.

"I am responsible for them getting in trouble with the police."

One woman saw him drop his son off at school and took down his number plate. His car has been damaged four times - scratches, tyres slashed, generally trashed.

"It is something I have to accept. If someone makes a death threat the chance of them actually carrying it our or knowing where I live is slim."

"I see people blatantly taking stuff and thinking they can get away with it. But I think there IS something I can do about it. I can stop it. The police say I do a god job so I stick with it."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.