Supermarket staff threatened by thieves

Retail workers are fearful of confronting shoplifters, according to a supermarket manager who says staff are facing high levels of abuse and intimidation.

Harry Delves, who manages Tuffins supermarket in Craven Arms, Shropshire, said employees have been threatened and verbally abused by thieves, leaving retailers wary of asking staff to intervene.

"It would have have to take an incident of quite a serious nature to get them interested," he said of police responses to reports of shoplifting.

West Mercia Police said it took all theft offences seriously.

Like many retailers, Tuffins has invested in measures to tackle theft, including a security guard, CCTV covering every aisle and a link to a national database of known shoplifters.

The system, known as Facewatch, has helped reduce the number of thefts at the store, Delves said.

Despite those measures, he believed cost-of-living pressures were contributing to the problem.

"It's pushing people to commit crime in order to make their way," he said.

Delves said theft was affecting retailers' finances at a time when many businesses were already under pressure.

"Retailers are struggling to make enough money to employ enough people, so it's only having an impact on the economy," he said.

Known offenders identified entering the store were politely asked to leave, he said, but dealing with more determined thieves could be much harder.

"Unfortunately, when you have people who are aggressive and have come into the store for specific reasons and are going to take something irrespective of someone telling them what to do, it's very hard to address that," he said.

"We wouldn't ask someone to address a member of the community directly because it could be dangerous to them."

Delves said training staff to challenge shoplifters also carried risks.

"The last thing we want to do is to encourage them to do something that might put them in danger," he added.

While none of his employees have been physically attacked, he said staff had experienced threats and verbal abuse.

"A lot of people have got a certain amount of anger over all sorts of issues and they take it out on people in shops sometimes," he said.

"What is wrong with the country is a bigger question."

Delves said some retailers felt they were increasingly being forced to take responsibility for security themselves because police resources were stretched.

"It's been harder and harder to get their attention," he said.

But Insp Rich Jones, who is responsible for neighbourhood policing in north Shropshire, said it was a misconception that the force did not investigate lower-value thefts.

"That's not the case," he said.

"Any theft is a theft, so anything reported to us allows us to build that picture up of who may be targeting the stores and how much we can deal with them."

He said gathering reports helped officers build cases against repeat offenders.

"I'd much prefer putting an offender in front of the courts with all the offences they'd committed rather than just one or two, knowing full well they'd potentially done more in that town," he said.

However Jones acknowledged police needed to work closely with retailers to tackle the issue and said shoplifting had historically been under-reported.

"It's been an under-reported offence for a number of years," he added.

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