Convenience stores victim to over 6.2 million thefts last year, ACS finds

The UK’s local shops recorded an estimated 6.2 million incidents of shop theft last year, compared with 5.6 million in the previous year, according to the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS).

The ACS said this marked another “record level” of theft committed against convenience store retailers, with the total cost to retailers an estimated £316m.

Retailers also spent over £265m on crime prevention and detection measures in their store over the last year. Taken together, the cost of crime and investment in crime prevention amount to a 10p crime tax on every transaction in a convenience store.

The report also found there were over 59,000 estimated incidents of violence in the convenience sector over the last year, and 1.2million incidents of verbal abuse.

The ACS told the story of Amit Puntambekar, who runs a Nisa Local in Fenstanton, and was attacked and injured when he attempted to challenge a thief and has been dealing with violent threats for months. Speaking in the report, he said: “When your staff are threatened with a hammer, when someone threatens to kill you who lives near your shop and the police don’t take it seriously, what’s the point?”

The report comes as parliament considers the Crime and Policing Bill. The Bill aims to introduce a separate offence for assaulting a shopworker, to scrap the £200 threshold for shop theft offences, and to increase police powers to deal with anti-social behaviour, among other measures to deal with prolific offenders effectively.

ACS has backed the Crime and Policing Bill as a “long-overdue turning point” on retail crime, and is urging everyone involved in the justice system, from local forces to Police and Crime Commissioners, to make tackling retail crime a priority this year.

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “The levels of theft, abuse and violence experienced by retailers over the last year makes for shocking reading, but it will not surprise our members who are living it on a daily basis. Criminals targeting local shops without fear of reproach cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we’re fully supportive of the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill.

“In our Crime Report, we have set out ways that retailers and the police have made a positive difference, putting in place strategies that work to keep retailers and their colleagues safer, and we need stronger legislation to back that up. This must be the moment we commit to ending the retail crime crisis, through Government, police and retailers working together.”