Yorkshire's communities 'fed up' of people getting away with crime, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warns amid town centre retail crackdown

Communities are "fed up" with seeing people getting away with blatant crime, the Home Secretary has said, meeting with shop workers in Yorkshire to pledge a crackdown in the nation’s town centres.

Yvette Cooper, on a visit to Morrisons in Rothwell yesterday, met with supermarket staff who shared their experience of assaults and abuse by gangs of shoplifters in the region.

West Yorkshire saw a 14 per cent increase in reports of shoplifting in the year to June, official figures outline, while the wider region topped 19 per cent in a near all-time high.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Ms Cooper met with Morrisons chief executive Rami Baitiéh, who is working closely with policing teams to ban repeat offenders and with a drop already seen over recent weeks.

Labour has pledged a crackdown on town centre crimeLabour has pledged a crackdown on town centre crime
Labour has pledged a crackdown on town centre crime

This was a challenge over the safety of staff, he told The Yorkshire Post, but also a feeling of safety as gangs make their way through stores - and at a cost of many millions each year.

"The products that are stolen, somebody has to pay for them," he added. "Honest customers pay for them, colleagues pay for them, the Government pays for them."

And Home Secretary Ms Cooper, pledging a crackdown on criminality, said: "People are really fed up with seeing other people getting away with crimes. That is not fair on law abiding people across our towns and communities. People committing crimes have to end up paying the price."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Chancellor set out funding in last month's budget to focus on retail crime, with £100,000 towards training, £5m over three years to fund a specialist team and improve intelligence, and £2m towards a shared resource for police and businesses to work together.

Home Secretary Yvette CooperHome Secretary Yvette Cooper
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper

The Government has also committed to making assaults on shopworkers a criminal offence and will scrap a £200 shoplifting 'threshold', which means many crimes aren't reported.

Mak Chishty, a former Met Police commander with Scotland Yard, outlined how the supermarket giant is working closely with police to tackle the challenge.

"We have a policy to report every crime," he said. "Morrisons is not a safe place to steal."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And the Home Secretary, who met with shopworkers and CCTV operators at the South Leeds store, heard about their experiences. The rise, she outlined, was largely down to criminal gangs rather than struggling families in a cost-of-living crisis. And along with a rise in reports of shoplifting and theft, there was a "big increase" in assaults and abuse against shop workers.

"Criminal gangs have come to know this is an easy way to make money and they're getting away with it," she said. "That's why we need stronger action. To make sure if you've got someone stealing again and again that it's taken seriously."

And when it came to the human impact, she said it was a "disgrace" and "completely unacceptable" that shop workers should come to harm.

A promised crackdown means getting "more police back on the beat", she added, and "strengthening the law". She said: "A lot of areas just don't see police or PCSOs on the beat anymore. We've got a plan over the next few years but we need stronger laws as well."

News you can trust since 1754
Follow us
©National World Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.Cookie SettingsTerms and ConditionsPrivacy notice