Most shoplifters agree that the January sales offer wonderful opportunities for the hard-working thief.     1    the shops so crowded and the staff so busy, it does not require any extraordinary talent to help you to take one or two little things and escape     2    . It is known, in the business, as "hoisting".
    But the hoisting game is not     3    it used to be. Even at the height of the sales, shoplifters today never know     4    they are being watched by one of those evil little balls that hang from the ceilings of so many department stores above the most desirable goods.
    As if that was not trouble enough for them, they can now be filmed     5    and obliged to attend a showing of their performance in court.
    Selfridges was the first big London store to install closed-circuit videotape equipment to watch its sales floors. In October last year the store won its first court case for shoplifting using an evidence of a videotape clearly showing a couple stealing dresses. It was an important test case which     6    other stores to install similar equipment.
    When the halls, called Sputniks, first make a (n)     7    in shops, it was widely believed that their only function was to frighten shoplifters. Their     8    ridiculous appearances, the curious holes and red lights going on and off, certainly make the theory believable.
    It did not take long, however, for serious shoplifters to start showing suitable     9    . Soon after the equipment was     10    at Selfridges, store detective Brian Chadwick was sitting in the control room watching a woman     11    putting bottles of perfume into her bag.
    "As she turned to go," Chadwick recalled, "she suddenly looked up at the 'sputnik' and stopped. She could not     12    have seen that the camera was trained on her because it is completely hidden, but she     13    have had a feeling that I was looking at her."
    "For a moment she paused, but then she     14    to counter and started putting everything     15    When she had finished, she opened her bag towards the camera to show it was empty and hurried out of the store.