Retail violence – England and Wales to align with Scotland

Retail crime costs the UK’s retailers £1 billion each year. Amidst reports of a Kent shopping centre’s cleaning staff being issued with stab-proof vests (The Times, 12 April 2024) and a number of retailers reporting an ever-worsening picture of assaults and violence perpetrated against their employees, the Government (announcement 10 April 2024), is to introduce amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, to make assaulting a retail worker a stand-alone criminal offence.

The offence, which could result in a term of imprisonment of up to six months and an unlimited fine, also means that offenders could be subject to a criminal behaviour order – barring them from visiting specific premises and which, if breached, could in turn result in a five year (maximum) prison sentence.

Offenders either found guilty of an assault on three separate occasions or sentenced for shoplifting on three occasions may also be ordered to wear an electronic tag.

This latest announcement builds on the launch of Project Pegasus – a police partnership with 14 of the UK’s biggest retailers; Retail violence — Government launches Project Pegasus - which will involve sharing information to include CCTV footage with offenders’ details screened through the Police National Database.

Unlike Pegasus, the Government has committed a reasonably substantial sum of £55 million over the next four years to fund mobile units to include live facial recognition technology to identify people wanted for offences.

Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC):

“After relentless campaigning for a specific offence for assaulting retail workers, the voices of the three million people in retail are finally being heard…the impact of retail violence has steadily worsened”.

Commentary

This announcement follows a long campaign led by the BRC, major retailers and USDAW, the Shop Workers Union. It also follows a recent amendment raised in Parliament by the Labour party to the Criminal Justice Bill.

In doing so, England and Wales will now align with Scotland, which, in 2022, introduced the Protection of Workers (Scotland) Act. This Act has so far resulted in over 500 convictions north of the border and has been welcomed by both USDAW and its members.

We have reported previously on how technological advances, to include AI Heuristics, facial recognition systems and body worn cameras are being deployed in the effort to reduce both retail crime and the level of retail workers subject to assaults and physical violence. These advances will need to go hand in hand with prioritised police response times and courts permitted greater sentencing powers. It is to be hoped that the combination of measures will deliver meaningful changes for retailers and their employees.                                                                                                                   

Whilst this welcome development should act as an additional deterrent and provide much-needed protection to retail workers, those working in the retail sector are not of course the only employees who are subjected to hostile working environments. We have previously reported that those who work in the theatre industry are having to deal with steadily deteriorating behaviour from audiences, whilst those in the hospitality sector have had to face alcohol-fuelled aggressive behaviour for years. It is hard to justify why they are not deserving of a similar protection as retail workers and therefore it is to be hoped that the reach of the new criminal sanction can be extended to protect as wide a range of those people serving the public as possible.