Latest news with #shoplifting
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Shoplifting hits record high in England and Wales
Retailers say theft is "spiralling out of control" after official figures show shoplifting in England and Wales is at its highest level since current records began more than two decades were 530,643 reported shoplifting offences in the year to March, a 20% increase from the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).The ONS said there had been "sharp rises" in shop theft since the groups said they were concerned by the increase in organised crime, saying gangs were "hitting store after store". The figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year up to March 2025 showed shoplifting offences were at the highest level since current police recording practices began in the year to March 2003."The ONS figures prove what retailers have long been telling us – that retail theft is spiralling out of control," said British Retailers Association director Tom said such theft was "not a victimless crime", adding that it triggered violence and abuse towards staff and cost retailers and customers £2.2bn a year."The rise in organised crime is a significant concern, with gangs hitting store after store, even within a single day," he said. Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) chief executive James Lowman said the official statistics were only part of the story. Separate figures from the ACS crime report found convenience stores recorded more than 6.2 million incidents of shoplifting in the past year, he said."Retailers tell us that they won't report crime if they have no faith in it being investigated," he Lowman said the figures showed that retail crime needs to be taken seriously "throughout the justice system"."Only then will we be able to start bringing the numbers down and stop widespread reoffending by criminals that are acting with confidence that they will not be apprehended," he this year the government unveiled the Crime and Policing Bill which the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said would address an "epidemic of street theft", including the bill the current £200 threshold for shoplifting, which means thefts under that value are treated as summary-only offences and not prioritised by Ironside said removing that threshold would "send a clear signal that all shoplifting is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."Responding to the new ONS figures, Ms Cooper said the government was working to rebuild local said more than 500 town centres would be getting extra patrols and there would be 3,000 more neighbourhood officers and police community support officers by next spring.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Mapped: The areas of the UK with the highest levels of crime revealed
Police forces recorded 6.6 million crimes in England and Wales in the past year, official figures show, including a sharp increase in shoplifting. The total is up from 6.1 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019-2020, and from 4.2 million a decade earlier in 2014-2015, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figures published by the ONS used data collected as part of the Crime Survey for England and Wales. It showed the number of crimes against individuals and households in England and Wales rose to around 9.4 million in the year ending March 2025. The number of shoplifting offences surged to the highest figure since current police recording practices began in 2003. Some 530,643 offences were logged in 2024/25, up 20 per cent from 2023/24. Theft from the person offences also remain at record levels, with 151,220 recorded by forces in the year to March, up 15 per cent from 131,584 in the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, the number of homicides dropped by six per cent to 535 offences, the lowest level recorded in more than a decade. The Independent has put together the maps below showing total crime, homicides, sexual offences and shoplifting broken down by police force areas in England and Wales: The Metropolitan Police recorded the highest number of crimes last year, with 942,674 offences logged across London. Greater Manchester Police followed with just over 319,000 offences, while West Midlands Police came third highest with nearly 309,000. At the other end, City of London Police, covering the small financial district, recorded just over 9,000 crimes, the lowest of any force. Cumbria Constabulary had around 37,000 offences, and Dyfed-Powys in Wales logged about 38,000. The Metropolitan Police also saw the highest number of homicides, with 104 killings over the year. West Midlands Police recorded 31, and Greater Manchester Police reported 27. The country's biggest police force also saw the highest number of sexual offences, with more than 55,000 recorded incidents. West Yorkshire Police came next with around 46,000, followed by Greater Manchester Police with almost 43,500. Shoplifting was also concentrated in the largest metropolitan areas. London again topped the list with nearly 94,000 offences, West Midlands Police recorded around 32,700, and West Yorkshire Police logged roughly 22,700 incidents. Retail bosses have warned that official statistics are likely to be the tip of the iceberg, and that shop owners need to see immediate results as ministers have pledged thousands more officers for neighbourhood policing. The ONS said that because these estimates are still in development and are subject to change, caution should be taken when making comparisons between the two years, and it is not possible to say whether the difference is statistically significant. Home secretary Yvette Cooper said: 'This summer our new neighbourhood policing guarantee means over 500 town centres are getting extra neighbourhood patrols and action on town centre crime, and we are delivering the first 3,000 increase in neighbourhood officers and PCSOs in communities by next spring.' The Crime Survey for England and Wales covers a range of personal and household victim-based crime, including theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse and violence with or without injury, but does not include sexual offences, stalking, harassment and domestic abuse, which are presented separately. Experiences of theft, criminal damage and violence with or without injury, as measured by the ONS survey, have been on a broad downwards trend since the mid-1990s.
BBC News
a day ago
- Business
- BBC News
Shop staff in Slough 'scared' as shoplifting cases rise
A shop owner has said his staff have been left "scared" as shoplifting cases continue to Farooq, who runs a phone shop in Slough, Berkshire, said thefts now occurred two to three times a week. Retail crime across the UK has surged, with 20.4 million incidents of customer theft reported in the year to September 2024 - up 3.7 million on the previous year - costing retailers an estimated £2bn, according to the British Retail Valley Police said it remained "committed to tackling shoplifting and retail crime". The force recorded a 22% rise in shoplifting between May 2024 and April Farooq said: "In Slough High Street we are facing many issues."We have to be careful with how we deal with them, we don't want trouble every day."He said he always called police after the incidents. "Usually [police] have to do their paperwork and they want CCTV from us," he said. "If they try to resolve these issues, it's good, but I don't think they can resolve them because we have seen the same faces over and over again."Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, said: "For individual shop owners it is just a horrible situation. They feel powerless to deal with it."He added that stronger police presence and local wardens could help deter Valley Police urged the public to report incidents via 101 or its website. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Shoplifting epidemic sees three thefts every minute
Nearly three thefts a minute are being reported by shops amid a growing shoplifting epidemic, official figures show. Shoplifting hit a record high of 530,643 offences reported to police in the year to March, a 20 per cent increase on the previous year's total of 444,022. The rate of shoplifting is nearly double the rate two decades ago, according to the figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). That equates to more than 10,000 thefts a week, or more than 1,400 a day and nearly three per minute based on average UK store opening times of 9am to 6pm. The figures are the highest since records began in March 2003, with retailers warning the crisis adds at least 6p to every store transaction by customers. The British Retail Consortium calculates losses at £1.8bn stolen each year, with a further £700m spent on extra security. The police-recorded figures are estimated to represent just 5 per cent of the total amount stolen as most shops only report to police when they catch an offender in the act or have evidence such as CCTV. Snatch thefts of phones and bags hit a 20-year high of 90,000 over the year to March 2025, the second-highest total on record, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which records people's personal experience of crime. That is up 29 per cent on 70,000 over the year to March 2024, and is the highest recorded figure since 106,000 in 2003/04. The surge follows warnings by police that they could be dragged away from tackling crimes like shoplifting and theft in order keep the peace at migration protests this summer. Earlier this month, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced plans for extra officers to be deployed on the streets of 500 towns in a summer blitz on shoplifting and anti-social behaviour by 'thugs and thieves'. Stores including M&S, Morrisons, Boots, Tesco, Primark, and Greggs are also rolling out a new scheme where they submit CCTV, photos and personal data on all their repeat shoplifters to a database that is shared with police. The shared data enables all the stores and police to 'join the dots' to identify prolific offenders, gather evidence for prosecutions and provide security staff on the shop doors with photo watchlists to bar entry. Home Office figures suggest that police are bringing more shoplifters to justice. The proportion of shoplifting offences resulting in a charge has increased from 17.9 per cent last year to 19.2 per cent in the year to March 2025. It follows an agreement last October between the Government and police where forces pledged to attend shoplifting cases if there was violence against a store worker, a suspected thief was detained or officers were needed to secure evidence. Ms Cooper said: 'The four-year increase in shop theft and street crime reflects the decimation of neighbourhood policing over the past decade. 'That is why this summer our new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee means over 500 town centres are getting extra neighbourhood patrols and action on town centre crime, and we are delivering the first 3,000 increase in neighbourhood officers and PCSOs in communities by next spring.' Chris Philp, the Tory shadow home secretary, said: 'Following yesterday's damning drop in police numbers, today the consequences of Labour's negligence are on full show. 'Under Labour, crime is up seven per cent, shoplifting has surged by 20 per cent, and under Labour's London Mayor, over 60 per cent of all personal thefts now happen in the capital.' ONS data also showed that around one in eight women were victims of sexual assault, domestic abuse or stalking in the last year. Around one in 10 people aged 16 and over in England and Wales were victims of at least one of the crime types of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking in the year to March, new estimates suggest. The survey found 5.2 million men and women aged 16 and over (10.6 per cent) were likely to have experienced one or more of these types of crime – but the percentage was higher for women (12.8 per cent) as opposed to 8.4 per cent of men. It is the first time an estimate has been made of the prevalence of these three crimes and is the main measure used by the ONS to monitor the Government's ambition of halving violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade. The Home Office will provide more detail later this year on how this will be used with other statistics to monitor its progress. The individual breakdown of the prevalence of crime listed on the survey suggests 2.9 per cent of the population, which accounts for 1.4 million people, have experienced stalking. Some 7.8 per cent (around 3.8 million people) experienced domestic abuse, while 1.9 per cent (around 900,000 people) experienced sexual assault. Around 8.6 per cent of the population (some 4.2 million people) experienced some form of harassment. Separate figures from the ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales published on Thursday suggest people aged 16 and over experienced 9.4 million incidents of crime in the year to March 2025, up from 8.8 million in the previous 12 months. The rise is mainly because of a 31 per cent rise in fraud, which accounts for 4.2 million incidents and is the highest estimate for this type of crime since fraud was first measured in the survey in 2016/17. The overall total of 9.4 million incidents in 2024/25 is 16 per cent lower than the total of 11.2 million for 2016/17, however. Experiences of theft, criminal damage and violence with or without injury, as measured by the ONS survey, have been on a broad downward trend since the mid-1990s. Police forces recorded 6.6 million crimes in England and Wales in 2024/25, down slightly by one per cent from 6.7 million in 2023/24. The total is up from 6.1 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20, and from 4.2 million a decade earlier in 2014/15.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Furious grandmother, 67, is banned from Asda after supermarket accuses her of switching yellow stickers
A grandmother has been banned from Asda after she was allegedly caught switching yellow stickers on a 'pack of bacon'. Jan Rhodes, 67, can no longer enter the store on Hall Road in Norwich, Norfolk, over the next three years despite having shopped there since it first opened in 2015. Bosses say they caught Ms Rhodes red-handed swapping the stickers in order to save cash. But the 67-year-old has denied all wrongdoing. She explained: 'I went in to buy three things and while I was there, the security came up to me and said I wasn't allowed in anymore. 'I've never done that [switch stickers]. 'I'm angry and I'm upset. I used to go in there all the time. I know loads of them in there. I just want to prove them wrong.' Ms Rhodes' partner, Rob Gillies, said one of the misappropriated items mentioned to Ms Rhodes by Asda staff was a pack of bacon. He said this had been purchased the day before his partner was told she was banned. Mr Gillies said: 'She bought it the same day it was expiring. I went back with the bacon to show them.' Ms Rhodes's stepdaughter, Leanne Hutchings, said she had also been to the store to plead her stepmother's case. She added: 'They say she's been doing it for a prolonged period of time. 'I explained saying that this is a case of mistaken identity. They also said she's been abusive. She would never be nasty to someone.' A spokesman for Asda said: 'We ask all customers to treat our colleagues and stores with respect and do not tolerate any form of abuse. 'While banning a customer is always a last resort, this decision was taken due to repeated disruptive and abusive behaviour.' It is not the first time a pensioner has got into trouble with Asda - in 2024, 68-year-old Andrew Oliver demanded an apology after he was barred from a store in Sittingbourne Kent. The full-time carer was attempting to rush out of the supermarket having received a call from his wife that she was struggling to breathe. But workers tried to stop him from using the travelator as there was a chair in front of it that prevented people going down. After escaping to tend his wife he later returned to the store, and was informed he had been banned for four weeks. The pensioner admitted he had been verbally abusive. In October 2024 it emerged a disabled woman had been banned from every Asda in the UK. Elanor Maxey, 32, was told she couldn't bring her dog Genie into any branch of the supermarket after an argument with one of the shop's security guards in Bexleyheath. The woman claimed she was branded 'rude' by the female member of staff and told she was breaching the Data Protection Act by recording the incident. Asda later apologised to Ms Maxey and reversed the decision to have her barred.
