Dine and dash – the new shoplifting?

A Welsh couple has been jailed for a string of "dine and dash" offences, walking out of restaurants without paying bills that totalled nearly £1,200. 

Bernard McDonagh, 41, and his wife Ann McDonagh, 39, went viral last month after CCTV showed them failing to pay at a Swansea restaurant. The couple, from Port Talbot, ordered "lavishly" at several South Wales restaurants, including T-bone steaks and double dessert portions, "just to see if they could get away with it", said The Guardian. They made their six children wait in the restaurants while they pretended to go to a cashpoint. 

They got "a buzz out of their spree", Swansea Magistrates' Court heard, using more than 40 aliases and 18 dates of birth as part of the fraud. The couple, who pleaded guilty in May, "cynically and brazenly" defrauded the restaurants, said Judge Paul Thomas KC. "It was criminality for criminality's sake."

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Ann McDonagh, who also admitted thefts from two supermarkets and obstructing or resisting a police officer, was sentenced to 12 months in jail while her husband was given eight months.

'I found myself doubting customers'

This is a growing phenomenon, said Sam Wilson in The Independent. It seems that the "epidemic" of supermarket shoplifting is spreading to restaurants. 

Last October, a group of seven "dashed" from a nearly £500 meal in Kent, which included lobster. In November, it was a gang of "posh pensioners" in East Yorkshire: a "well-dressed foursome" who chose the most expensive dishes on the menu before they "scarpered". 

One of the most "extravagant" cases was a newly married couple and their 80 guests, who ran up a £7,000 bill on a seafood banquet in Italy. They not only fled the restaurant, but the country.

The trend is "causing considerable pain" in a hospitality industry struggling with the aftermath of the pandemic, high inflation, and rising costs for staff, ingredients and utilities, said Wilson. 

Restaurant owners have also spoken about how the phenomenon has undermined their trust. "I found myself doubting customers and worrying it might happen again," said Giovan Cangelosi, co-owner of a restaurant targeted by the McDonaghs. "I found it hard to sleep at night."

'Signalling status'

Dine and dash might seem like "something of an epidemic" lately, said Geoff Beattie, professor of psychology at Edge Hill University, on The Conversation. But it has a long history. A study by Barclaycard in 2018 found that one in 20 had walked out of a restaurant without paying.

Those with a "low tolerance for boredom" or prone to risk-taking can gain pleasure from deceit that involves jeopardy, known as "duping delight". This phenomenon intensifies when "you can see the face of your victim", and when you are accompanied by friends who "know what's going on". That's why, compared with shoplifting (usually a "solitary activity"), dining and dashing "maximises the thrill". There's also the desire to "act big in this competitive society", and consumption of goods is a way of "signalling status".

Dining and dashing is nothing new – but clearly CCTV has "changed the game". "Perhaps watching the fall of the greedy will make some people think again," said Beattie, "and keep most of us outside the restaurant looking in, still dreaming of that pricey T-bone steak."