ITV news interviewed Blue Diamond‘s Head of Group Security, Nathan Wilson in their Cheshire garden centre location, regarding the rising retail crime and violence against retail workers highlighted in the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) crime survey. The survey indicated that the number of incidents rose by a startling 50% to 1,300 per day in 2022/23 from almost 870 per day the year before. There are now 45,000 shoplifting crimes committed every 24 hours.
In the interview, Wilson explained “I have detained people that have pulled knives on staff, had guns on them, I have been stabbed with a syringe and had physical violence against me when I detained people. You think of how many people in the country work in the retail environment. They do not come to work everyday to be abused and assaulted, to then end up having their mental health affected”.
The BRC has said that the Government’s Retail Crime Action Plan may help bring new focus to the police’s response to retail crime, but that they are calling for a standalone offence for violence against retail workers. According to the BRC, this law is desperately needed as a clear signal that such behaviour will not be tolerated and improve the visibility of all incidents of retail crime, allowing for better allocation of police resources to the issue.