Britain's police 'aren't interested' in tackling shoplifting anymore, Marks & Spencer's boss claims

Release time：2024-06-03 14:59:22 Source：Earth Examination news portal

The boss of Marks & Spencer has claimed that Britain's police 'aren't interested' in tackling shoplifting anymore.

Archie Norman, chairman for the major retailer, told LBC News that stores across the country get 'very little help' from officers, even though retail theft hit the highest level on record last year.

According to the Office for National Statistics, a total of 430,104 offences were recorded by police in the year to December 2023, up by more than a third (37%) from 315,040 in the previous 12 months.

Mr Norman's comments echo those of other retail bosses who have accused ministers of allowing shoplifting to become effectively decriminalised, with many police forces failing to attend the majority of reports or gather any evidence when they do.

Recent figures revealed under 40 per cent of shoplifting reports were attended by the Metropolitan Police between April 2022 and April 2023.

Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari on the issue, Mr Norman said: 'I think it [shoplifting] is a problem. I think I have said before, but it's a worldwide problem coming out of the pandemic. It's happened everywhere.

'We get very little help from the police and we have to accept that police are not interested in this sort of crime anymore.' 

M&S chairman Archie Norman told LBC News that stores across the country get 'very little help' from the police, even though retail theft hit the highest level on record last year

A total of 430,104 offences were recorded by the police in the year to December 2023. The figure is the highest since current records began in the year to March 2003

This is the moment two shoplifters brazenly steal products from a Boots store just yards from a police station on Station Road, Chingford - as helpless staff watch on

Shocking video filmed at a Greggs in Archway, North London, shows a shoplifter walking out holding three sandwiches and two bottles of orange juice 

Despite the worrying statistics, Mr Norman said theft at M&S is actually going down 'mostly' because of the retailer's own efforts and not those of police.

Norman blasts Gove over store plan

Archie Norman has lambasted Michael Gove for 'never, ever' engaging amid a dispute over M&S's Oxford Street store.

The retailer wants the housing minister to overturn his rejection of plans to demolish and rebuild its flagship store. 

Norman told LBC he does not think Gove has visited unless to 'buy his pyjamas or something'.

A spokesman for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities called the remarks 'misleading'. 

The spokesman said: 'Ministers cannot engage with interested parties on planning cases which are before or may come before them.'

The High Street stalwart has pumped cash into crime prevention measures such as store detectives and camera systems.

He added: 'At Marks & Spencers we do worry about it [shoplifting] a lot, but our actual theft has gone down not up. That is mostly because of what we are doing. We have spent a lot of money on it.' 

Shoplifting costs retailers an estimated £1billion a year, with the number of thefts more than doubling in the past six years. 

In the last month, CCTV footage captured two shoplifters brazenly stealing products from a Boots store just yards away from a police station in East London.  

The pair could be seen throwing products from the shelves into big black sports bags at the store on Station Road, Chingford, while one onlooker frantically called 999.

Elsewhere in the capital, a pair of masked shoplifters were also recently recorded helping themselves to bottles of booze from a Tesco store in Belsize Park - all as security guards and staff looked on.

The shocking moment was caught on film by a bystander at the shop, and showed the two thieves at the fridge section piling bottles of alcohol into a large bag, before running out with their loot and even grabbing an onlooker's phone. 

In April, Rishi Sunak's spokesman said the increase in shoplifting was 'clearly unacceptable', and added it was the Government's understanding that an increase in shoplifting was being driven by 'organised criminality'. 

The Home Secretary James Cleverly said that shoplifting has a 'corrosive effect' on people's confidence, and that police should attend every incident and pursue every line of inquiry to send a message that 'you don't just get away with it'.

This pair of thieves can be seen throwing products from the shelves into big black sports bags at the store on Station Road, Chingford

A pair of masked shoplifters in a Tesco in Belsize Park, North-West London, helped themselves to bottles of booze before running out with their loot and even grabbing an onlooker's phone - all as security guards and staff watched

Asked about the soaring number of shoplifting offences, the Home Secretary said: 'We do take it very seriously.

'There is no such thing as a sub-threshold crime. Crime is crime. It's black and white. Criminal activity should be policed.

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Shoplifting offences rise to highest level since records began: Store thefts jump by more than a THIRD compared to 2022 - with 430,104 offences recorded in last 12 months, figures show

'The crimes that people see have a corrosive effect on their confidence and a lack of confidence to be able to live your full life is really important. 

'Because when people see videos of shops being robbed, that has a corrosive effect, so we have to deal with it, which is why we've made it absolutely clear they [the police] will pursue every reasonable line of inquiry.'

The epidemic of shoplifting has seen shops resort to desperate measures to protect stock, with shoppers left stunned this week after spotting a £2 chocolate bar locked inside a security box in a Co-op supermarket in Codsall, Staffordshire.

Meanwhile, one Tesco branch in Theydon Bois, Essex, has even begun putting security tags on shopping baskets due to a rise in the number of people helping themselves to 'five-finger discounts', another way of saying 'shoplifting'. 

Separate figures emerged earlier this month showing convenience store thefts have soared to 5.6million from 1.1million in just one year.

Figures from the Association of Convenience Stores also revealed that there were 76,000 acts of violence in small shops last year, up from 41,000.

Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium said thefts cost retailers £1.8billion in 2022-23, up from £953million the previous year.

A Tesco branch in Theydon Bois, Essex, has slapped security tags on shopping baskets 

This security-protected bar of Dairy Milk Wholenut was seen at a Co-op in Codsall in Staffordshire

Richard Inglis, who runs a chain of Co-op stores in Hampshire, said police had told him they would not investigate shoplifting offences unless the theft is over £200, and that there is clear CCTV footage and the criminal's full name is known. 

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Co-op says it was hit by more than 300,000 cases of shoplifting and abuse last year - with staff being targeted 1,000 times a DAY amid a slew of shocking raids

Mr Inglis said: 'It used to be a police officer would have come down, taken a statement and CCTV. But as they have cut back on resources we have to do our own statements now and upload the CCTV to a system, and those cases are then reviewed.

'The burden of proof we have to provide now is so extreme.

'I have been told by the police that if I don't know their name [of the shoplifter] and don't have a clear shot of their face on CCTV, then it won't get to court.

'If not they will take it as a report but would mark it up as no further action, then it just becomes a statistic but nothing is going to be done. They basically told me it's not the right use of resources.

'Most of the police we deal with want to do more but they know it's a waste of their time as it just gets filed further up the line, or if it gets to court and the court doesn't do anything.

'They've decriminalised these things and that has caused it to increase, there's no deterrent.'

Last year a senior Co-op executive revealed specially trained security staff were regularly catching shoplifters, only to have to let them go because police were ignoring 80 per cent of cases.

Paul Gerrard said the chain had invested in undercover security guards who perform citizen's arrests on thieves.

But Mr Gerrard - who used to work in law enforcement - admitted that in the majority of cases they had to be let go because officers never turn up.

'These are highly trained expert guards - often ex-police and ex-forces - who work undercover in stores where there's a particular problem,' he told MailOnline.

'They will intervene and make a citizen's arrest and detain the individual. But even in those cases when we've detained an offender and called for police assistance the police don't attend in 80 per cent of cases.'

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