A man has been arrested after a video of him slapping a suspected homeless shoplifter went viral on social media.
The video appears to show a worker at a branch of Costcutter in east London repeatedly slapping the man in the head while hurling abuse at him, after accusing him of stuffing goods into his bag.
The footage, filmed on a mobile phone, shows the attacker taking the suspected thief aside and asking him to open his bag – before striking him.
He lands 11 slaps as the man stumbles around the shop – while warning him the store is “not a f****** ordinary shop” like Sainsbury’s or Tesco.
“You ever steal again I’ll slap the f*** out of your face,” he says before adding: “I will f*** you up personally, you understand?”
The video was posted on Facebook on Friday, and watched thousands of times before the original footage was deleted from YouTube.
Claims have since come to light that the victim was a homeless pensioner.
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Police announced today that they were alerted to the video, filmed in Newham, on Saturday and have since arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of common assault.
Officers added that no allegation of assault has been made.
Costcutter condemned the attack and said it had immediately referred the matter to police.
It claimed the man was not in fact an employee but a relative of the store owner.
Writing on Facebook, the convenience store company said: “We are shocked by the events shown in this video.
“Having spoken with the store owner, he has told us that he is equally appalled and explained that one of his relatives who was not an employee took matters into his own hands when the owner was absent.
“While it is not possible for the shopkeeper to take any direct action with regards the person shown in the video, we immediately contacted the police to ask them to investigate this incident further.”
Police are appealing for anyone who was in the store at the time of the incident to contact Newham CID by dialing 101.
WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS ADULT AND ABUSIVE LANGUAGE!
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