44 million British pounds, or more than 50 million euros. This is the amount spent in 4 years by Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco, the UK’s leading retailer, to strengthen the security of his supermarkets. The latter explains to The Mail on Sunday that this investment has enabled the deployment of door access systems, protective partitions, digital radios and cameras. Measures that do not seem sufficient to deter the aggressors, who are more and more numerous.
A third more attacks in a year
If Ken Murphy decided to offer his employees body cameras, it is mainly because the number of physical attacks has increased by a third in one year. In total, 200 employees would be victims each month.
These acts may also be limited to insults, threats or various other acts of abuse. According to a recent survey, these episodes of violence and abuse increased from 450 per day in the retail sector in 2019 to more than 850 per day last year.
“After a lengthy campaign by retailers and the Usdaw union, last year the government made assaults on store workers an aggravating factor in sentencing, meaning offenders should receive longer sentences.” judges should use this power. But we need to go further, as in Scotland, and make abuse or violence against retail workers a crime in itself.”
Shoplifting will cost £1bn by 2022
Ken Murphy also advocates closer collaboration with law enforcement, stating that “gangs take advantage of the fact that we don’t share enough information. We can only stop these thugs if we work together.” A need that seems validated by Matt Hood, director of the Co-op food cooperative: “Crime in retail is a constant challenge and we know it is driven by prolific repeat offenders and organized local criminal gangs,” he said.
Beyond physical violence, it is also the proliferation of thefts that worries the sector, especially since it often goes unpunished. They have doubled in the last six years, costing UK stores over £950m by 2022. The theft is not going to stop anytime soon as food inflation has risen 17.5% in a year in the United Kingdom.
Source: BFM TV
