Violence and Abuse Against UK Shop Workers Tripled Over Pandemic
- One in 10 cases involved violence against staff, survey finds
- Costs of retail crime in 12-month period totaled £1.5 billion
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Cases of violence and abuse against UK retail workers almost tripled during the pandemic to about 1,300 incidents a day.
That’s according to a survey by the British Retail Consortium, which showed almost one in 10 daily incidents involved violence against store staff, with only 4% of occurrences resulting in prosecution. Three in five respondents said the police response to these incidents was “poor” or “very poor,” according to the study, which covered the 12 months through March 2021.