The Co-op is experiencing the highest levels of crime and abuse in its stores that it has ever seen as shoplifting levels in the UK hit a 20-year high.

Speaking with the Justice and Home Affairs Committee today (3 September), The Co-op Group public affairs and board secretariat director Paul Gerrard said in the convenience retailer’s stores, levels of crime have risen by 44% and within that, it has seen a rise of 35% in violence and abuse.

He explained: “That level of crime in our stores is 1,000 incidents every single day. That is the highest level we have ever seen, levels of abuse are at the highest level we have ever seen and violence has dipped slightly in 2024, but it still a very high level.”

Gerrard said that while it could be argued that levels of crime have happened more often as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, it isn’t what is driving the rise.

“What is driving a 44% increase is people who are stealing to order huge volumes, people coming into our stores with wheelie bins, people coming into our store with builders bags to steal the entire confectionery section, the entire spirit section, the entire meat section,” he said.

“If one of my colleagues gets in the way, there will be a violent threat. There might be a knife, there might be a syringe. I’ve had colleagues attacked with a medieval mace, we’ve had colleagues lose their eye, we’ve had colleagues miscarry.”

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When questioned over how Co-op is looking to aid colleagues through the rise in retail crime, Gerrard explained that the retailer’s “first priority” is “keeping colleagues safe”.

“We spend money to keep the colleagues safe in the store. If an incident happens, then we take a number of measures. The colleague will be looked after, they’ll get counselling, they’ll have time off as they need it, we will increase the security we need in that store, we will close the store, we will do whatever we need to do to keep colleagues safe because stock can be replaced, colleagues can’t.”

He added that if a colleague is threatened, Co-op will report this to the police, while it also deploys undercover guards who are “highly trained” through its security contractor.

“They operate undercover and they will apprehend individuals in store who are attacking colleagues or large scale theft. They will then detain them, make a citizen’s arrest and call the police,” he explained.

As well as being one of the funders of Project Pegasus – a partnership between 13 retailers including John Lewis, Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Next which supports police forces in identifying the organised crime groups operating in their area – the Co-op also has 13 partnerships across the UK with different police forces in different regions.

Gerrard said: “What we’ve seen over the last 12 to 18 months is the willingness of the police to engage in those partnerships shift significantly. If I look at our partnerships over the first seven months of this year, we are looking at a 200% increase in the number of offenders that the police have managed and we’re looking at a 250% increase in prison sentences.”

“What we see now is that the partnerships work because the police are more interested. Partnerships is how you tackle this and partnerships is also how you give confidence to the retail sector to report crime.”