Shocking lawlessness of shoplifting gangs exposed
BRITAIN is becoming a “state of lawlessness” after a 44% increase in shoplifting over the past 12 months, a report has warned.
The crime epidemic is seeing brazen thieves setting up market stalls in pubs to flog goods they shamelessly shoplift from nearby stores.
In some cases, gangs even use wheelie bins to raid stores, with staff too terrified to intervene as shelves are ruthlessly emptied.
The British Retail Consortium has warned that 16.7 million incidents recorded last year had cost retailers an astonishing £1.8billion.
Now the Stealing With Impunity report by Emmeline Taylor, a professor of criminology at City, University of London, has exposed how lawless Britain’s high streets have become.
The research, prepared in partnership with the Co-op store chain, found that despite investing £200million in preventative measures over recent years the retailer suffered 330,000 incidents of shoplifting last year.
That equated to nearly 1,000 incidents every day across its 2,400 stores. There were also over 1,325 physical assaults against store workers – a 34% year-on-year increase. A further 40,000 incidents of anti-social behaviour and abuse were recorded.
Prof Taylor said: “Retail crime not only impacts on a business’s ability to operate safely and profitably but also causes serious harm to shop workers, both physically and mentally, and to communities that are blighted by persistent offending. The police in England and Wales have lost grip on the scale and severity of acquisitive crime and, in turn, retailers have lost confidence in them and the wider criminal justice system.”
Matt Hood, managing director of Co-op Food, said: “We’re seeing far too many prolific offenders persistently steal large volumes of products in our shops every day. And if they’re stealing to fund addictions, the situation often becomes volatile.”
The new report says criminal gangs have progressed from hiding items in coat pockets and under clothing to using giant sacks and even suitcases in order to swipe more goods from shops.
In some instances, wheelie bins have been taken away filled to the brim with goods.
Police guidance is now to tell retailers not to challenge shoplifters due to the potential threat of violence, the report found. And two in every five criminals stopped by trained security guards are able to walk away after police fail to attend, it was said.
Some of the goods are stolen to order by organised criminal gangs.
As part of the study, the retailer tracked stolen wine and meat, finding it being sold in restaurants, corner shops and even from a row of stalls set up in a Manchester pub near a store.
Many shops are now being forced to replace everyday items with dummy tubs and boxes which customers must swap at the till for the real thing.
Some staff even claimed they had been reprimanded by police for reporting shoplifters and threatened with a warning by an officer if they were to contact the police again.
Employees who do lodge reports told of fears about being recognised by an offender in the community.
The report puts forward a new proposal which includes making attacking a shop worker a standalone criminal offence.