Coles sacked a worker for grabbing a shoplifter. As a lawyer, here’s why it was the right call

October 30, 2026 — 2:00am

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Anyone who works in retail knows the old saying “the customer is always right” is often wrong. Never is this more obvious than when the customer is engaging in a crime such as shoplifting. In my early 20s I worked at a suburban Woolworths until midnight several nights a week. I saw shoppers push trolleys full of goods through the turnstile without paying. I detected shoppers hiding items inside cooked chickens. I saw all sorts of things shoved down people’s pants. Back then, in the late 1990s, the two young male duty managers I worked with on the night shifts used to chase these individuals out into the dark car park and tackle them to the ground, holding them down until the police arrived. That was the way it was done.

It might have been OK then, but, it’s not OK now. In a recent Fair Work Commission decision, a Coles worker in Sydney employed for 10 years was fired after he grabbed and held onto a suspected shoplifter for a couple of minutes outside the store, at a neighbouring Liquorland. Coles suspended him and told him to stay away from the store while they investigated, but he turned up the next day anyway, and Coles then sacked him for the shoplifter incident and ignoring the suspension. The Fair Work Commission found a valid reason for........

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