Iceland store workers are being “threatened with a range of weapons” by shoplifters as retail theft and abuse against staff skyrockets.
Speaking with MailOnline, Iceland Foods executive chairman Richard Walker said: “Every single week I receive an average of 12 reports of ‘serious incidents’ where managers and other colleagues have been attacked in our stores, almost always by shoplifters.”
He added that colleagues are being “slapped, punched and threatened with a range of weapons including knives, hammers, firearms and hypodermic needles.
“Other assaults have resulted in injuries ranging from a broken jaw to a fractured skull.”
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This comes as Walker is the latest supermarket boss to call on the police and government to do more in tackling rising levels of retail crime, claiming “police ignore 70% of calls for help with store theft”.
However, he told the publication that police “need to have the resources to allow them to take this crime epidemic seriously”, adding “we also need the courts to impose serious sentences”.
Earlier this week, the John Lewis Partnership revealed that it has lost £12m to theft year on year as John Lewis chair Dame Sharon White has urged the government to clamp down on increasing levels of theft and introduce tougher legislation.
According to the British Retail Consortium, physical assaults on front-line store workers have risen 30% year-on-year while anti-social behaviour and verbal abuse are up by 20%, with 850 cases of abuse against store staff recorded daily.
In a bid to help the police crackdown on shoplifting, a new partnership – named Project Pegasus – is set to receive £600,000 from ten supermarkets including John Lewis, Waitrose, Co-op, Tesco and Sainsbury’s to implement new face-scanning technology.
The project will be ran through police chief’s national database, giving law enforcement officers an idea of where shoplifting gangs are operating.
