Crime commissioner urges retailers to call police when shoplifting 'in progress'

‘Afraid’ retailers have been asked to challenge shoplifters by the region’s police and crime commissioner.

Matthew Barber addressed councillors at the Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel for Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire on Friday (November 8).

Cllr Lubna Arshad enquired about a ‘dedicated hotline’ for retailers, adding: “At the moment, they are quite afraid because of the response times. I have seen there is more patrolling going on, but I would like to see more visibility.”

Mr Barber said there are often ‘challenges’ around response times but the ‘dedicated hotline’ is 999.

“If you've got a crime in progress even if it is just shoplifting, then call 999 because it's happening now, attendance is absolutely appropriate to request,” he told the panel.

“I do draw a distinction [and] sometimes push back to retailers on the need for attendance, certainly urgent attendance.

“I'm really keen that we get that attendance right, but it needs to be attendance for the right things.

“If you ring up and say there's a shoplifter in the store, he's assaulting someone that massively escalates the need for attendance.”

Mr Barber said non-violent incidents with missing stock after it’s happened might not require police attendance.

“That's a little bit of reassurance but actually does nothing to catch the perpetrator,” he added.

Mr Barber has funded the free rollout of the app Disc to all retailers in Thames Valley in response to shoplifting.

The platform allows retailers to ‘quickly’ report and access information such as CCTV images and descriptions of shoplifters with neighbourhood policing teams and other businesses.

“This is not to replace 999. This is to replace waiting on 101 or using the TVP website which can be a bit clunky,” he said.

Mr Barber said the ‘courage’ and ‘willingness’ of staff to challenge offenders has changed, and understands this can be improved by police attendance.

“I don’t mean that everyone should be rugby-tackling dangerous offenders to the ground and endangering themselves, but it doesn’t have to be that physical,” he said.

“Even just verbally challenging someone. People don’t. People will stand there. Sometimes they’ll film on mobile phones.

“There is that personal responsibility.”