Central England Co-op wins MPs backing for campaign to stop assault and abuse of colleagues

Today the retailer, which operates over 260 food stores across 16 counties, joins forces with over 200 parliamentarians from across the political divide to reinforce its message to keep staff and customers safe and that any type of crime from burglaries to violence and aggression towards staff would ‘not be tolerated’.

New figures have seen assaults jump by 100 per cent, threats and intimidation by 25 per cent and verbal abuse by 175 per cent since the start of the year, and since the lockdown was introduced, there have been over 100 incidents related directly to people using COVID-19 as a threat.

Some examples of incidents have included multiple threats by customers to cough on colleagues and ‘give them Coronavirus’ and further threats of assaults because people have had to queue to enter stores, social distance or simply because they do not have a specific product.

The Society has long campaigned for the Government to change legislation so shop workers are afforded greater protection in carrying out those public duties and today is saying more needs to be done now to protect these critical workers and to curb a potential crime epidemic.

Jim McMahon MP, Chair of the Co-operative Party Parliamentary Group, said: “Shop workers have been going to work and quite literally putting themselves at risk so the rest of us can get the food and other essential items we need, and dealing with unimaginable anxiety in the process, they shouldn’t have to deal with people threatening to give them Covid-19 on top of that.”