British Retail Consortium warns over ‘endemic’ violence towards shop workers and says theft is causing anxiety
Criminal gangs are “systematically” targeting shops, retailers have warned, with 5.5m incidents of shoplifting detected last year, costing the industry an estimated £400m.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned over “endemic” violence towards shop workers – who faced an average 36 incidents of violence involving a weapon every day last year – and said high levels of theft was causing “anxiety” among retail staff.
Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the BRC, called on police to consistently prioritise tackling retail crime and commit “dedicated resourcing” to the problem.
The BRC research comes after the government put forward new legislation to back a stand-alone offence for assaulting a retail worker and to remove a £200 threshold for “low level” theft, which has a maximum six-month custodial sentence.
