James Kelly
Mr. Kelly had been clean for two years in December
“I would walk past restaurants and things like that and look in the windows and think to myself, why can’t I just be like those people, why can’t I just be normal?”
James Kelly, 38, from Birmingham, was addicted to drugs and shoplifting for more than 20 years before a West Midlands Police drug rehabilitation program helped him get his life back on track.
Now two years clean, he’s helping retailers and businesses tackle shoplifting – a crime in which the force has seen the biggest increase according to the latest figures – and has won awards for his work.
He said he believes the cost of sending a criminal to rehab far outweighs the cost to society, the criminal justice system and of course to stores and businesses.
“I started using drugs when I was really young, but before I started I was always stealing from shops and stuff, and that was from as young as five and six,” he said.
He said as a child he was exposed to things he shouldn’t have been, which affected his upbringing, while both his parents struggled with addiction.
He has since been diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia and PTSD.
His crimes evolved into burglaries and stealing cars, and by the age of thirteen he had tried crack cocaine, which caused deep paranoia and a form of psychosis and caused him to hide in the bushes, thinking he was being chased.
Then at age 14, he discovered heroin, which he said gave him a feeling of love, something he deeply craved, and he became addicted.
Then a cycle of drug use, violence, crime and incarceration continued.
West Midlands Police
James Kelly was a known offender in Birmingham
He stole virtually everything he could sell from shops, mainly in north Birmingham, and became a known offender, also traveling around the country stealing.
“I was breaking into houses. I was shoplifting all the time. At one point I was even growing cannabis,” he said.
“It was just a crime. I never thought about getting clean. I never thought I could live a normal life.”
At the age of 33, after around twenty years of offending and addiction, he was approached by PC Stuart Toogood of West Midlands Police to take part in a new program to help him turn his life around.
Central England Co-op funded his rehabilitation centre, and he completed 12 weeks and several months in aftercare, but subsequently relapsed, PC Toogood said.
Mr. Kelly fell back into crime and went to prison, but the officer stayed in touch with him and eventually got him back into rehab in 2022.
This time it worked, and he moved to a recovery community in Derby, marking two years clean in December.
During that time he started working for the program that helped him – Offending to Rehab in Nottingham – and Clean Slate, who help people with substance abuse and mentor people like him.
“I have started to find my true passion, which is helping other people, but now also companies that I used to steal from,” he said.
James Kelly
Mr Kelly won an award in March for his work with businesses and former offenders at West Midlands and Nottinghamshire Police
His work with the Nottingham Police Business Crime team saw them collate figures as part of a presentation to businesses to calculate how much he would cost retailers and the criminal justice system if he were still shoplifting, buying drugs and serving time in prison.
He said that over a 22-month period, £100,000 was spent on his prison stay, more than £300,000 worth of shares were stolen and more than £100,000 was spent on drugs.
In October, figures revealed that shoplifting was one of the crimes for which West Midlands Police had seen the biggest spike, amid record numbers of cases nationally.
In the twelve months up to and including June, a A total of 26,145 shoplifting incidents were registered by the force, compared to 19,184 in the previous twelve month period.
The rate was higher than the 29% increase in recorded shoplifting in England and Wales over the same period.
Mr Toogood said he saw the scale of the problem when he worked in Erdington a few years ago.
“There were a lot of people going in and out of those stores, constantly stealing, relentlessly, constantly stealing and the reason was that 99% of the time it was heroin and crack.
Stuart Toogood
PC Stuart Toogood started the program in Erdington around 2018
‘Although I’m a fairly experienced Bobby, I’ve never worked on a High Street like this before. I had never seen it in that concentration before. It surprised me.’
He did some research to see what could be done to combat it and, with funding from the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner’s office, pilot-launched the Offending to Rehab program in Erdington in 2018 before it was launched from about 2021 was completely taken over. after some positive results.
The two police officers and two drug workers are proactive, visiting retail parks and asking, “Who’s causing you a problem?”
They have also managed to secure some funding from retailers including the Co-op, B&Q and Boots, and there are plans to expand the program to Coventry and Wolverhampton.
‘There is absolutely no doubt that the people we helped, including James and a whole host of others, many of whom were sincerely, sincerely, would be 100% dead by now, because some of those we tried to help are now dead and would not accept the help,” he said.
He said if offenders have a habit of £1,000 a week, they would need three times that amount to afford it.
“So you can see that in a month’s time that would be £12,000 and then you multiply that by twelve and that gives you an idea of how much they steal and how much they actually give to the illegal drug trade.”
James Kelly
Mr Kelly now gives presentations to police teams and national companies on how to tackle shoplifting
Mr Kelly said he loves the work he does now that he has a purpose in life.
“I really care about these guys and get emotional when they’re doing well… I’ve never been that kind of person,” he said.
“I had to grow up in the recovery process, but I always had that good side of me. It just wasn’t overpowering and that need for medication just overtook those kinds of things, but now that good side of me is the most dominant.”
Now he said he no longer looked through restaurant windows and questioned his life.
“So I had only been clean for two years and last week I went out to dinner with about three or four different groups of friends,” he said.
“I can now walk past these places and go in and not worry about the price and just eat and enjoy it, and if any of my friends are struggling and can’t afford it, I can pay for that too.”