[jennyjuniper]

'Tesco workers manhandle and apparently beat shoplifter'. The key word there is 'apparently', because all the witness saw was the shoplifter being manhandled into a back room and told to 'sit on the f...... floor'. Where does the beating come in?
Alcoholics (and seeing as it was alcohol he was stealing, I'm making an assumption here) can be very violent and unpredictable, which is why there were probably several Tesco workers involved.
Only those behind the closed door know whether the man was beaten or not. These kind of assumptions are the kind made to stir up trouble, whether it's the truth or not.