Stores need to play their part against retail theft, according to Home Office minister for Policing and Crime Prevention, Dame Diana Johnson. Her remarks came during a wide-ranging interview with Justin Webb on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on August 13.
On shoplifting she said: “Stores need to play their part in making sure that items that are high value are not at the front of the store because that is an issue in some stores, that they put bottles of alcohol at the front of the store which obviously people will nick. If they are going to steal to re-sell, they will nick items like that. It is not just one thing here, it has to be an approach with the retailers, with the Government and with the police to work together.” On that point, and as she mentioned later, she chairs a retail crime forum which she said has all the big, national retailers (the contractor Mitie is the sole security company represented on the forum; its Northampton office was the venue for Labour’s launch of a retail crime strategy document, which described crime against retail as ‘unprecedented’).
Policing
Earlier, the minister acknowledged increased over the last few years in such crime, ‘which has to stop’. She went through the aspects of Labour’s policies so far against crime on the high street – a stress on ‘neighbourhood policing’ (Johnson also made claims that the previous Conservative government cut such policing); and a new law to make assault of a retail worker a specific offence, on the lines of assault of an emergency worker; and another legal change, to do away with the limit of £200 of goods whereby, it’s suggested, police won’t take up a case of shoplifting.
PCC view
Justin Webb quoted the Conservative police and crime commissioner (PCC) for Thames Valley, Matthew Barber, one of the more vocal critics of Labour’s law and order policies since the July 2024 election win; and Richard Walker of retail chain Iceland. Barber, while ‘not expecting everyone to be rugby tackling criminals to the ground’, has called on the public to ‘tackle’ an individual that they see stealing. Johnson in response gave a case of a shop theft she saw in Hull (the city where she’s a constituency MP), and that she reported to a member of staff.
As for Iceland, Richard Walker, executive chairman, said that the firm now has more than 1000 ‘serious incidents’ a year, defined as marauding gangs, violent assault, threats with needles, hammers, ‘you name it’. He added that he goes through the weekly serious incident reports every Monday morning. He said: “There is now no area of the country unaffected by this. It happens everywhere, from small market towns to big cities. He spoke of criminals feeling an ‘impunity’, which explains an increase in level of violence, caused he said by a lack of deterrent.
On Labour’s work to stop ‘small boats’ crossing the English Channel, Johnson said that it was ‘early days’. Commenting in the Daily Telegraph, columnist Allister Heath complained of Johnson’s ‘grotesque moral inversion’ for telling retailers not to place ‘high value’ items near the entrance (and easiest for thieves to walk out with).
More on crime against business in the August and September editions of Professional Security Magazine.
