Apr 18th, 2024
10 mins
Assaulting a retail worker is to be made a standalone criminal offence, the Home Office has announced.
Serial or abusive shoplifters will face tougher punishments under the new action announced by the Prime Minister last week to crack down on retail crime and protect UK highstreets.
Perpetrators could be sent to prison for up to six months, receive an unlimited fine and be banned from going back to the shop where they committed their crimes, with Criminal Behaviour Orders barring them visiting specific premises. Breaching an order is also a criminal offence and carries a five-year maximum prison sentence. For the most serious cases of assault, such as causing grievous bodily harm with intent, offenders could face a life sentence.
The move to create the new offence follows longstanding campaigning on this issue from Matt Vickers MP, and some of the biggest retailers, calling for more action to better protect their staff.
The government is also stepping up action to clamp down on offenders who repeatedly target the country’s high streets, with serial offenders forced to wear tags to track their movements.
These tags will be a constant and physical reminder to offenders that the Probation Service can find out where they have been and when, and that they risk being sent to prison if they refuse to obey the rules. Under an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, if an offender is found guilty of assaulting staff three times, or is sentenced for shoplifting on three separate occasions, they should be made to wear a tag as part of any community order.
Ahead of this legislation coming in, the government says it will partner with a police force to pilot a bespoke package of community sentencing measures which can be used by judges to tackle high levels of shoplifting, sending a clear message that repeat criminality will not be tolerated.
The government is also ramping up the use of facial recognition technology to help catch perpetrators and prevent shoplifting in the first place. Backed by a £55.5m investment over the next four years, the police will be able to further roll this new state of the art technology. This will include £4m for bespoke mobile units that can be deployed to high streets across the country with live facial recognition used in crowded areas to identify people wanted by the police – including repeat shoplifters.
The mobile units will take live footage of crowds in towns and on highstreets, comparing images to specific people wanted by the police or banned from that location. Police in the area will then be alerted so they can track down these offenders.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “Since 2010, violent and neighbourhood crime in England and Wales has fallen dramatically, showing our plan to keep our streets safe is working. Yet shoplifting and violence and abuse towards retail workers continues to rise.
“I am sending a message to those criminals – whether they are serious organised criminal gangs, repeat offenders or opportunistic thieves – who think they can get away with stealing from these local businesses or abusing shopworkers, enough is enough.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “There is quite simply no excuse for threatening behaviour or stealing – which can run other people’s livelihoods into the ground, while being traumatic for workers.
“To turn a blind eye to retail crime shakes the foundations of law and order which protect our society and that is unacceptable. We are enhancing our plan and doubling down on the zero-tolerance approach needed to fight back.
“The number of offenders being charged for these crimes is increasing and while I want to see more people face consequences for their actions, our plan is designed to help put a stop to these crimes happening in the first place.”
The government has driven forward significant efforts to tackle retail crime in the past year, bringing together policing and business to commit to smarter, more joined up working to reduce criminal behaviour and rebuild public confidence in the police response when it does occur.
Crime and Policing Minister Chris Philp said: “Sadly if you speak to anyone working in retail, they will tell you of the verbal abuse and sometimes violent assaults they’ve been victims of, simply for trying to do their job.
“In no other workplace would this be accepted. I have been driving forward action to improve the police response to retail crime since I became Policing Minister, because nothing less than a zero-tolerance approach will do.
“That’s why we’re sending a clear message to criminals that enough is enough bringing forward further measures to protect retail workers and crack down on those who continuously disregard the law.”
A specialist new police team set up last year is building intelligence on organised retail crime gangs funded through ‘Pegasus’, a first-of-its-kind business and policing partnership backed by 14 of the UK’s biggest retailers, National Business Crime Solutions and the Home Office, launched to radically improve the way retailers are able to share intelligence with police to identify more offenders. The unit forms part of Opal, the national police intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime.
Where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police are committed to running this through the Police National Database, as standard, to aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals. This builds on the pledge by police forces across England and Wales that they will follow up on all lines of enquiry, where there is a reasonable chance it could lead them to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime.
All police forces across England and Wales made another significant commitment last year to prioritise police attendance at the scene of a retail crime incident where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, or where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel.
Home Office
