It’s not the first milk theft incident in Bristol this year
16:00, 29 Jul 2025Updated 21:28, 29 Jul 2025
A single mother of two young girls has voiced her fury after brazen thieves stole milk and biscuits from her front doorstep, just two minutes after her milkman made his delivery. The Gloucester Road resident stepped outside her home last Friday morning (July 25) to check for her regular milk and biscuits order, only to find it missing.
Upon checking footage from her Ring doorbell camera, to her disbelief she saw thieves had stolen her entire delivery in the middle of the night. The items had been left on her front step, behind a closed front gate and concealed from the street.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” the mum, who preferred not to be named, said. “When I was a kid, you’d walk down the street and there’d be a pint of milk, and it’d be fun and games, like, ‘let’s nick the milk’, but actually going into somebody’s home… is very different, because he’s searched for that, he’s followed the milkman.”
Camera footage showed one thief initially taking a packet of biscuits, before returning and stealing a cooler box full of the whole delivery. The 40-year-old said she could hear the thief captured by her camera talking to an accomplice as he made his escape. The mother of two girls, aged 12 and three, said the incident had left her shaken.
“He knows he’s being watched, he didn’t care,” she said. “That’s what’s a bit scary about it because they think… that no one’s going to do anything about it.”
This experience is not the first time thieves have targeted milk deliveries in Bristol this year. In April, people across the city took to social media to vent their anger after similar incidents.
(Image: submitted)
This time the victim said she was worried something more serious could have happened if she went out to confront the thieves.
“It’s just milk, but then is it just milk? What If I’d have gone out there, what would have happened? Am I allowed to go out there and protect my property without having drama?,” she added.
At one point, milkman deliveries looked to be in terminal decline across the UK. However, consumers’ increasing awareness of the problem of plastic waste, combined with a pandemic-inspired surge of home deliveries, has seen the number of people getting their milk delivered fresh from source rebound to an estimated 600,000 households.
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One of the UK’s largest delivery companies, Milk & More – which supply the Gloucester Road mum with her thrice weekly delivery – delivered over 53m bottles in the UK last year. She said the fact she felt she was doing the right thing by getting her milk delivered only compounded her frustration at the theft.
“I thought about cancelling it, but I love my milkman,” she said. “And obviously I want to get fresh milk straight from the farm, in glass bottles, trying to do the right thing.
“And that’s, I think, what’s annoying about it is that we’re all trying to do as best we can, so there aren’t any plastics (used) and our kids are getting organic, nice milk, and then someone just ruins the experience for nothing.”
An Avon and Somerset police spokesperson confirmed the force was in touch about the incident and asked anyone with more information to contact them.
“We received a report that milk and biscuits delivered to a property in Gloucester Road, Horfield, were stolen alongside a cool box to store them in at around 1.30am on Friday 25 July.
“CCTV enquires are being carried out and we are in contact with the victim. Any witnesses or those with CCTV footage of the incident, or the moments leading up to it, are asked to call 101 quoting reference 5225210797, or complete our online appeals form.”
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