Violence Against Shop Staff Announcement

A hugely significant moment for retailers and those working to fight retail crime as the Prime Minister announces a standalone offence of assaulting a retail staff member to combat the frightening rise in violence faced every day.

Through our work supporting thousands of retailers, we have seen this problem increase to record levels where staff are terrified to come to work and companies are having to implement extreme measures to protect them.

Operations Director Adam Ratcliffe welcomes the decision saying: “This is not only a massive step in addressing a violent crime impacting millions of people, it is also the long overdue acknowledgement that retail crime needs to be tackled more robustly, using all the legislation available.

It is important we recognise that those people, celebrated by us all as key workers during the pandemic, have now needed a specific crime type to be introduced to protect them. This is a direct result of stretched Police resources unable to tackle the problem leading to a feeling of impunity for offenders.

So I implore the Government to back this decision with more support for our Police Forces and a greater emphasis on partnership-working to tackle this issue, because the tools are only effective if they are used.”

Our team speak to staff daily, gathering the intelligence to identify those offenders causing the most harm, and the violence and aggression faced every day has risen to unprecedented levels.

Our operating model of identifying these key offenders can directly support Police Forces to take efficient and effective action on those violent people. We are given large amounts of data from retailers, allowing us to present an accurate picture of the problem and limit the resources needed to be allocated from Police.

This is a direct result of the tireless campaigning by so many of our colleagues in the retail sector and we are delighted that their work has been worthwhile.