Brazen shoplifters searching for a model of gin warned Waitrose employees they might return when it was again in inventory.
The grocery store’s boss, Dame Sharon Lewis, says organised gangs are stealing high-value objects to order – and described the pattern as “profoundly shocking”.
Dame Sharon – chair of the John Lewis Partnership – has beforehand warned retail crime is reaching “epidemic levels”, with the enterprise going through a £12m hit from shoplifting.
Incidents rose by 25% within the yr to June, in response to police knowledge for England and Wales launched final week.
Speaking to the Policy Exchange assume tank, Dame Sharon mentioned: “It feels within the final yr we’ve got moved from ‘I’m going to place an additional six eggs in my basket, I have never paid for them however truly my household’s struggling’ to organised gangs shoplifting to order in a method that I’ve discovered profoundly surprising.
“I was in a store a few weeks ago and they spoke about a gang coming into the store and they were after a particular brand of gin, and we were sold out … They said: ‘Don’t worry we will be back on Monday because we know you’re going to be replenished over the weekend.'”
Her feedback got here after the federal government introduced the launch of a brand new nationwide intelligence unit to sort out organised shoplifting gangs.
Thirteen main retailers – together with Tesco, the Co-op, John Lewis and Marks and Spencer – are contributing £60,000 over two years, and the Home Office £30,000, to fund the brand new squad.
Police additionally made renewed commitments to attend the scene of extra shoplifting incidents the place there may be violence or safety employees have stopped a suspect.
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Dame Sharon mentioned that whereas there was “more conversation” and “good intent”, this hasn’t made any “material impact on the ground” but.
She instructed the viewers {that a} poor police response to shoplifting – in addition to residence burglaries and automobile break-ins – represented a “profound break in the social contract”.
Dame Sharon has backed the introduction of a regulation in England and Wales that may make it a selected crime to assault or abuse a store employee – much like laws enforced in Scotland.
The former Ofcom chief, who joined the joined the employee-owned enterprise initially of 2020, just lately introduced she is going to step down when she completes her five-year time period in February 2025.
Source: information.sky.com”