A new twist has emerged after a photo of an “elderly” shopper being questioned by police outside a Coles store sparked an outraged reaction on social media.
Sharing on X, a bystander claimed a “poor old lady” had been “forcibly arrested” by police outside a Melbourne CBD Coles store amid allegations she was stealing.
The social media user went on to say that they’d offered to pay for the customer’s items, but claimed police wouldn’t allow it.
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The image posted by the passerby shows a person wearing a woman’s hat and pushing a personal shopping trolley often used by elderly customers. The shopper’s face, however, is obscured in the image by a Victorian Police officer, who appears to be pulling items out of the trolley.
The post attracted more than one million views and 30,000 reposts, with thousands taking aim at the police officers and Coles staff for targeting the “pensioner” who “simply needs to eat to stay alive”.
However it’s now emerged that the shopper was in fact not an elderly lady, but a 32-year-old woman.
7NEWS.com.au understands the woman was impersonating an elderly shopper during the trip to Coles and was discovered with a significant amount of groceries.
Victoria Police have confirmed that the woman was cautioned for shoplifting.
“Police responded to reports of shoplifting at a centre in Richmond about 3.30pm on 17 April,” police said.
“Officers arrived to discover a woman had been detained on the ground by a loss prevention officer employed by the store.
“Police separated the parties and spoke with a 32-year-old woman from Glenroy who was cautioned for shoplifting.”
In the initial X post, the bystander took aim at Coles and Victoria Police for targeting the shopper, who they believed was elderly, describing her apprehension as “forcible”.
“I told the police that I’ll pay for her food and let her go and then I got threatened with being arrested for ‘obstructing police’,”the X user said
“Boycott Coles and Woolworths.”
In further posts, the bystander made even more serious allegations about the incident.
“When I intervened to help the lady I then got threatened by the police of being arrested for ‘obstructing a police matter’,” they posted.
They added: “This lady also had a speech disability which makes it 1000000x worse that the police and Coles staff did this!”
The posts attracted a heated reaction from social media users who were outraged by the claims — not realising that the “elderly” female shopper was in fact a younger woman.