Sean Egan tackled a shoplifter and lost his job. Now he’s national news. Why?

Storm clouds are gathering over Aldridge. Not literally — actually the Saturday sky is a deep blue and the sun is beating down on the tarmac of Morrisons carpark. But the mood amongst those assembled here is aggrieved. There’s been an injustice. And the crowd won’t rest until it’s been righted. Or at least, they will not be giving Morrisons their custom, no siree. 

“I won’t use Morrisons again, not after how he was treated,” pledges a middle-aged woman with cropped hair and a lilac hoodie. Nearby a man dances in and out of the road, clad in a Union Jack blazer. Nearly 100 people have gathered to protest the firing of Sean Egan who, until December of last year, had worked in Aldrige’s Morrisons branch since he was 17. Egan had climbed the market street ladder to the position of manager when he tackled a man named Daniel Kendall, who was making off with two bottles of Jack Daniels.

As Egan tells it, he had recognised Kendall — a prolific shoplifter — and confronted him. Kendall was not best pleased about this, reportedly spitting at the 46 year-old. The incident escalated until an “altercation” took place, Egan told the BBC, which involved the manager and Kendall’s “heads connecting”, until the thief was bundled out of the store and arrested by police.

It was this that led to Egan’s sacking: Morrisons have a policy of ‘deter-and-not-detain’; physically intervening with thieves is verboten. His 29 years of service were no match for the rules. After a disciplinary hearing, he was let go. 

But a curious thing has happened. Amid a febrile backdrop of supposed ‘lawlessness’ and increased retail thefts: Egan’s case has become a cause célèbre.

I'm Madeleine and I reported this story, with help from Dan Cave. For this short piece, I spent a day in Aldridge, interviewing people, then returned at 7am on a Tuesday to see if I could spot the regular Morrisons shoplifters I'd been told tended to operate at that hour. That's not including all the other phone calls and reach outs I made to other sources to make this dispatch possible.

What I'm trying to say is proper journalism takes time and money. The internet has convinced us nothing has value, which means everything should be free. We don't believe that. At The Dispatch, we know it's worth paying a fair price to be part of something of quality, to put pride back into our local news.

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Which is why the car park of Morrisons is now playing host to people carrying homemade signs, one has ‘Sean the hero, Morrisons the zero’ painted on it, another has printed: ‘Hero Sean.’ The woman boycotting Morrisons in the lilac hoodie wonders aloud if she might get arrested, eyeing the police car circling the gathering. Another, too shy to start the protest chant, asks if The Dispatch might do it. “It would have to be three cheers for Sean,” she says. 

The man of the hour eventually makes an appearance and is treated like a local celebrity. Dressed in fluorescent trainers, having run across from Bilston to raise money for a local hospice, Egan dutifully does rounds of the crowd, attendees hugging and greeting him everywhere he turns. “I’m overwhelmed by the support,” he tells them.