The Co-op is calling for attacks on shop workers to be made a specific offence. And which of us does not feel sympathy for poor unfortunate retailers who are on the sharp end of the increase in shoplifting? The Standard reported last year on one branch of the Co-op which was looted by shoplifting gangs three times in one day.
The word to note here is “gangs”. we are not talking about the unfortunate woman in the Ken Loach film, I, Daniel Blake, who got caught stealing sanitary towels from a corner shop and ended up a prostitute. We’re talking about a crime wave. No fewer than 55,860 shoplifting offences were recorded in London in the last year, an increase of nearly half on the previous year. That’s bad but what’s worse is the estimate that nine out of 10 offences aren’t actually reported.
