Report: "Horrific Rises" In Attacks On Sussex Shopworkers

In the year to the end of this March, there were 483 reports of violence against a shop-worker made to Sussex Police — an increase of 32% (156 reports) over the previous year.

The figure came out in a meeting of the "Safer Sussex Business Partnership" on Tuesday (June 30) organised by Sussex's Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne.

It followed concerns raised by local businesses about physical assaults, verbal abuse and intimidation against their shopworkers. 

According to the commissioner's office, this meeting involved members of the Safer Sussex Business Partnership which includes senior officers from Sussex Police, business crime experts, representatives from Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the Co-op as well as representatives of smaller, local stores, business crime reduction partnerships and Mitie (a facilities and outsourcing company).

After the meeting, Katy Bourne reported she'd learned that this type of crime is still vastly under-reported and is having huge impacts on its victims and wider community.

Particularly, shop management across the county were experiencing "horrific rises" in verbal abuse and violence against their staff, exacerbated by the current pandemic which has led to product shortages and strict social distancing measures. 

Danny Molloy, Tesco area manager for Sussex and Kent, said:

"We have seen an increase in colleagues assaulted and spat at recently.

"The prolific offenders causing problems for us before have just got worse.

"As lockdown loosens, we are also expecting to see an increase in shoplifting and with that will come even more violence and threatening behaviour.

"As a local retailer we will be looking to share our data more widely and report more incidents to the police who I have been reassured will take action.” 

The commissioner's staff reported that the majority of crimes were carried out by prolific offenders, who use threatening and sometimes violent behaviour if challenged by staff.

It was agreed that intelligence sharing amongst local businesses and the police is key to ensuring these people are taken off our streets. 

Attendees believed the role of security operation centres, CCTV hubs for many local businesses, could generate information to be shared with Sussex Police so that officers can establish more robust cases against offenders and bring them to justice. 

The Sussex Safer Business Partnership was expected to meet again on July 17.