Rishi recalls his family’s agony as he cracks down on shoplifting
RISHI Sunak has told how he witnessed thieves stealing from his parents’ pharmacy.
The Prime Minister, speaking about the Government’s new crackdown on the current surge in shoplifting, told store workers: “We’ve got your back.”
Mr Sunak launched the drive in Horsham, West Sussex, where he visited shops including the local Boots and spoke to police officers.
Asked if his father Yashvir and mother Usha had ever chased thieves down the street, Mr Sunak said they had not.
But he told LBC radio: “It happened when we were there, and it’s an awful thing. I know what it feels like.
Distressing
“As a small family business, it’s financially affecting and it’s extremely distressing.
“We’ve got a really good track record on reducing crime since 2010 but the one area we’ve seen an increase, particularly in the last year or so, is retail crime. It’s not acceptable. It’s not right. It’s awful.”
The Home Office has announced thugs who attack retail workers could be jailed for up to six months.
Serial offenders will also be forced to wear electronic tags, have their movements tracked and be banned from shops as
ministers and police chiefs try to end the retail crime epidemic.
Police recorded 402,482 shoplifting offences last year, the highest number in 20 years.
This is up from 304,459 in the previous 12 months, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics.
It is the first time since current records began in 2002-03 that the number recorded has exceeded 400,000.
Home Office minister Laura Farris said the Government had worked hard on making assaulting a shopworker a separate criminal offence.
The MP for Newbury told BBC Breakfast: “It isn’t a secret that we have spent quite a lot of time going back and forth on this.” Ms Farris added: “The reason we’re changing the law today is because first of all we accept that this continues to be a problem and that it has increased. “And secondly because we think that it will work well for the purpose of recording the offence, this specific offence, and also because we’re attaching bespoke sanctions to it, different sanctions that would apply to ordinary assault.” Ms Farris, the victims and safeguarding minister, added there had been a “really regrettable spike” in shoplifting in the last two years.
She said facial recognition tech was “transforming our ability to identify criminals and to apprehend them in public”. The minister added: “We are very confident that, used in shopping centres and more widely, it can be a highly effective tool in combating retail crime.”
Ms Farris also told Times Radio: “We’re not hearing from the retail sector that this is sort of individuals stealing a loaf of bread, we’re hearing something far more sinister and organised and methodical.”
She said retailers “think it’s by and large organised crime, and by the way there will be no excuse for assault on a retail worker”.