New Specific Offence for Assaulting a Shopworker
17th March, 2025
The Government has announced that it will create a new specific offence for the assault of a shopworker.
This change is being brought as part of the Crime and Policing Bill which has been introduced to Parliament. This looks to implement a raft of measures to tackle the rise in retail crime like shoplifting and violence towards staff members.
According to the British Retail Consortium’s annual crime survey, incidents of violence and abuse have risen dramatically. More than 2,000 incidents per day were recorded in the year to 31 August 2024, compared to 1,300 in the previous year. These have more than doubled since the 2021/22 period.
This increase aligns with a rise in shoplifting offences. More than 20 million incidents of theft were recorded in 2023/24, equating to 55,000 per day. This shows a significant climb from the previous year, when there were over 16 million incidents.
What will the Crime and Policing Bill change?
The Crime and Policing Bill seeks to make violence towards retail workers a standalone offence, proposing that it would carry a maximum sentence of six months. Perpetrators would also face an unlimited fine and a ban from the shop where the offence was committed, with Criminal Behaviour Orders barring them from visiting specific premises. Failure to comply with an order is also a criminal offence and can lead to a prison sentence of up to five years.
It would also remove the £200 low value limit for shoplifting by repealing Section 22A of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980 and the legislation that inserted it (Section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014). This would mean shop theft would be tried as ‘general theft’, bringing a maximum sentence of seven years irrespective of the goods’ value. As the law stands currently, theft of goods worth £200 or less is only a summary offence and is tried in the magistrates’ court.
The new legislation will be backed up by the recruitment of 13,000 extra neighbourhood policing roles. The Government has said that the Bill will support the police to act swiftly in the ‘golden hour’ of investigations, helping them to seize stolen property more quickly and provide greater assistance to victims.
The Bill also includes funding to crack down on gangs that target retailers, while additional training will be provided for police officers and retailers to deal with the growing threat of retail crime.
Why the retail industry has pushed for changes
Retailers have broadly welcomed the Crime and Policing Bill, a number of them having campaigned on these issues for many years. The Co-op has been pushing for a standalone offence for attacks on shopworkers since 2018 and commissioned a report which revealed the record levels of retail crime.
However, some want the legislation to go further, given how shopping habits have changed in recent years with the rise in home delivery services. Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium, has urged the Government to ensure retail offences cover “all those in customer-facing roles, from delivery drivers to till staff.” Delivery drivers are already covered in Scotland’s Protection of Workers Bill, and the BRC is pressing the Government to consider providing similar protections across England and Wales.
Retailers have seen the £200 low-level shoplifting limit as giving perpetrators effective immunity and the statistics show that shoplifters have been empowered by this lack of consequence. The combination of incidents becoming so widespread and a lack of meaningful action being taken against perpetrators has led to many shoplifting incidents going unreported.
Satisfaction with the police response to retail crime is low – 61% of respondents to the BRC’s crime survey described it as “poor” or “very poor”. Retailers have been spending record amounts on crime prevention, with £1.8 billion invested in the likes of enhanced CCTV, security personnel, anti-theft devices and body-worn cameras in 2022/23.
It is hoped that creating a specific offence for violence towards retail workers will give the police greater visibility of the resource needed to tackle the problem, while the legislation more broadly will give them greater powers to bring perpetrators to justice.
What else is being addressed by the Crime and Policing Bill?
The Bill looks to introduce a number of other measures to address antisocial behaviour. The introduction of Respect Orders will give police and local powers the ability to ban persistent offenders from town centres or from drinking in particular public spots. Breaching a Respect Order will be a criminal offence.
Police will also be given new powers to search homes and seize stolen goods that have been electronically tracked, such as phones and laptops.
Similar to retail theft, these crimes have also risen significantly. There were at least 83,900 phone theft offences recorded in the UK in the year to July 2024 – a level almost double that of five years prior.
Under this legislation, victims of mobile phone thefts who track their device while it is in the hands of a criminal could call on police to recover it quickly.
The Crime and Policing Bill is part of the Government’s ‘Safer Streets mission’ and ministers want it to be enshrined into law by the end of the year. The Bill has had its first reading in the House of Commons, with debates and voting still to take place.
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