Shoplifter Danny from Channel 4 documentary Benefits Street Channel 4 was facing a police probe last night over a documentary featuring a thief showing how to shoplift. Detectives are considering whether to investigate the criminal activities seen in the programme on welfare claimants. The prolific shoplifter explains how to dodge security alarms and how to remove security tags from designer clothes without causing damage. More than 200 complaints were made to Channel 4 and the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom after Benefits Street aired on Monday night. Residents in a deprived Birmingham road were filmed making false welfare claims and growing cannabis in their homes. John O’Shea, a Labour councillor in the city, said: ‘Channel 4 appear to have aided and abetted shoplifting in Birmingham.’
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Benefits Street features the lives of several jobless living in Birmingham
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West Midlands Police admit they are reviewing footage for crimes
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Star Dee Roberts was held after drugs raid on street last year
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'I'm innocent and have not been charged with anything,' she said
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Force founds bullets, cocaine, cannabis and cash in various houses
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90% of those in the 137-house street said to claim one or more benefit
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'Manipulated' residents complain series has made area 'look like slums'
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4.3m saw it making it most watched Channel 4 show for more than a year
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Ofcom receives complaints about the portrayal of criminality by show
After making £200 in an afternoon, @placeholder then calls a drug dealer to order ‘two bags and a shot’.
@placeholder insisted the programme-makers were careful not to show viewers how to commit crime.