Lidl security guard spared jail for breaking shoplifter’s leg while tackling him

Leandro Da Silva admitted to assaulting a shoplifter to ‘severe injury’ (Picture: Media Scotland)

A security guard at a Lidl supermarket who broke a shoplifter’s leg as he and an accomplice tried to flee has been spared jail.

Leandro Da Silva, 28, who was employed at the store in Edinburgh despite having no training, approached David O’Connor and Natasha Robertson after seeing them trying to pilfer items, a court heard.

They became ‘verbally abusive’ towards him and a struggle ensued after Da Silva attempted to restrain O’Connor and grabbed him.

The pair then ‘fell to the ground’ with the guard ‘on top’, after which O’Connor stopped struggling, the court was told.

But Da Silva proceeded to ‘lay on top of Mr O’Connor with his knee pinning him to the ground’.

Xander Van Der Scheer, prosecuting, said Da Silva reacted to Robertson approaching by ‘grabbing the female shoplifter by her hand and dragged her on top of Mr O’Connor, who was still lying on the ground’.

He added: ‘This effectively resulted in a situation where Mr O’Connor is on the floor, the female shoplifter is on top of him, and the accused is restraining both of them.

‘This pile-up, if I can call it that, has then dissolved.’

Da Silva was trying to stop two shoplifters from escaping a Lidl store in Edinburgh

A colleague put O’Connor in the recovery while an ambulance was called, and he was later found to have suffered complex fractures to two bones in his left leg, requiring two rounds of surgery, and deep vein thrombosis.

It was ‘unclear’ from CCTV how the injuries came about in the altercation in January 2020, after which Da Silva resigned and left the security injury.

His defence team said the security firm which contracted him out to Lidl had given him ‘no training whatsoever’ and simply told him his job was to ‘stop and apprehend shoplifters’.

O’Connor and Robertson both admitted to police they had been in the store to shoplift, the court heard.

Da Silva admitted a charge of assaulting David O’Connor to his severe injury and restraining him with excessive force.

He was fined £140 after the court’s sherriff found he had been ‘overzealous’ in doing his job, adding that the situation was worsened by the ‘absence of training’ from his employer.

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