Now that Peaches Geldof has allegedly been caught 'on the rob', is shoplifting The Great Leveller?

Following on from Leila's post last week about one Ms. Geldof, there was some interesting Peaches-related news in The Sun yesterday. Reporting that she was "caught leaving a trendy boutique without paying for clothes" I was put in mind of a naughty little chatette that Becca and I had recently, where we (or rather, I, in an rather ill-advised and inexplicable sharing-moment) fessed up to teenage shoplifting badness.

Granted, it was lipstick-testers and More-magazine-tucked-under-arms a-go-go (we were too scaredy to take anything grander) but it feels as if it's the one naughty thing most women have done. And statistically at least, it's girls rather than boys who do it.

Anyhoo, it's something of a hot topic at the moment - with various doom-laden reports about how the economic downturn has increased shoplifting levels to an all-time high. The Red Tops would have us believe that now we're all foraging for £5 Lidl lobster* and not buying a million designer handbags a minute, we're nicking them. And what's intriguing about petty theft is that it cuts across the class spectrum.

There are the age-old celebrity stories (Richard Madeley and his 'cheeky' champagne, Winona 'I Got Free Clothes From Marc Jacobs And Yet Was Still Averse To The Checkout' Ryder) and now, apparently a fourth 'incident' involving young Peaches.

I heard a brilliant feature on Woman's Hour about young girls who shoplift not two months ago, too, in which our young female charge was put face-to-face with a store manager, policeman and her mum and reduced to hot, wet, finger-wagging tears. Is that overkill?

What makes those with more money than sense do it? And do you agree with Conservative MP Anne Mackintosh - who's currently pushing a Private Members Bill to replace on-the-spot fines for shoplifting with spells in the slammer?

*Re: Lidl Lobster, if anyone has tasted one, do tell. I need to know if they are genetic abominations or not.

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