‘Flabbergasted’ retail chiefs are livid after Met police boss Mark Rowley referred to as on THEM to ‘step up and do higher’ within the battle towards shoplifting
A retail head says he is ‘flabbergasted’ that the head of the Metropolitan Police has criticised retailers calling on them to ‘step up and do better’ when it comes to helping police tackle shoplifting.
Andrew Goodacre, CEO of the British Independent Retailers Association, said today that he ‘could not believe it’ when he heard Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley was calling on stores to do more and publicly lecturing them that ‘this was a team effort’.
He said the retail sector had in fact spent £1.2 billion on high tech extra security measures in the last two years but was still losing £2 billion in stock a year.
‘It is slightly off field for him to come out and say ‘we have done our bit now come out and do yours’,’ he said.
While agreeing that police nationwide had been making a concerted effort recently to improve their record on catching shoplifters, he said police had ‘effectively ignored the problem’ before they were forced into action.
‘I am really surprised he has come out with this. In fact, we have all been working hard together – retailers, police and PCCs – as part of the Police and Retail Crime Action Group which was set up two years ago by the last government to tackle shoplifting and it has been a collaborative effort to get to that point.
‘We are grateful that police forces around the country have ‘stepped up’ to use his words. Response times have improved for example and more recently there have been high profile raids on illicit shops.
Sir Mark Rowley (pictured) claimed there was evidence of security staff working with gangs to help them steal from shops
Cambridgeshire Police released CCTV footage of thieves targeting the John Lewis department store in Cambridge earlier this month, amid growing concern over retail crime
‘What disappoints me is that it has been collaboration that has got us to this point, not just him and police forces.’
Sir Mark Rowley said in an interview with the Telegraph that while the police’s record on store theft definitely needed improvement two years ago when the retail sector was right to be ‘cross’, police had now made significant progress.
He went on to call on retailers to work together with the police more, detailing occasions where stores had hampered investigations by not providing CCTV images and video.
Sir Mark said: ‘They were right to say to us, ‘please step up more’. And we have done. They need to step up more. There are some of them who are fantastic and I’m not going to name a good and bad list, that would be invidious. But I’m just putting a marker down.’
Sir Mark said police in the capital had now ‘really doubled down’ on shoplifting, throwing the gauntlet down to retailers:
‘We’re making a lot of progress, but they now need to do better.’
He even outlined one incident where private security staff had colluded with shoplifters to tell them when it was ‘clear’ and ‘helping them commit their criminality’.
As well as refusing to hand over CCTV to police, he also suggested some retailers refused to let their staff have time off to provide witness statements to the police or attend court to give evidence.
Sir Mark added: ‘So if they’re not prepared to roll up their sleeves as corporate victims, it’s going to be tough for us to make progress.’
But hitting back, Mr Goodacre said there was a ‘trust gap between those who own and run and work in retailers and the police’ because retailers believed police ‘won’t do anything in the long run about it’.
‘Yes, they may well respond but the people perpetrating the crimes are still roaming the streets and back out. That may not be the police’s fault. It may be the blockage in the court process doing that so that’s the frustration.’
He said that he always encouraged retailers to submit evidence but they were often frustrated ‘that even after doing so or even after holding the suspected shoplifters on site, those people are back out on the street a day later’.
He added: ‘That’s the gap he has identified between retailer action and police communication but – if we are going to improve that – him coming out and being this critical of the retail sector is unhelpful.
‘He should go to the Retail Crime Action Group and ask them to go to people like me and Sainsbury’s and the Co Op and whoever to really try and make sure that the crimes are properly reported.
‘If we reported all the crimes, police forces wouldn’t be able to cope. They would be overwhelmed so be careful what you wish for!’
Sir Mark said facial recognition technology meant police were able to identify shoplifters or robbers in at least forty per cent of cases when they had obtained CCTV images.
And the Met boss said one UK chain operates a central control room in which they send pictures of suspects to the police, adding that ‘some of them are great at collecting the material’.
CCTV captures shoplifting taking place at News Plus on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow
‘This is a team game. We’re stepping up. They now need to as well.’
Sir Mark said the Met’s efforts at tackling shoplifting had allowed the force to reverse the rise in store thefts, with cases down 4.4% this year from April to December.
Earlier this week, thieves who toured John Lewis stores across three counties to steal fragrance and Apple products worth tens of thousands of pounds were jailed.
Simona Dumitru, 35, and Sara Nae, 25, both from Leicester, stole goods from shops in Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes and High Wycombe during August and September.
Lucy Whing, Crime Policy Advisor at the British Retail Consortium, said there were some ‘early signs’ that ‘ongoing improvements in coordination between retailers and police forces’ were ‘paying off’.
‘Retailers are also investing in new CCTV systems and reporting systems to help provide as much information as possible to authorities, however it is vital that reporting systems are aligned across police forces, to ensure that retailers can implement reporting systems that work right across the UK,’ she said.
