LAW ENFORCEMENT
Met police denies 'blame game'
A senior Metropolitan Police officer has denied engaging in a “blame game” with retailers after warning that stores are too-often failing to provide the evidence needed to help catch shoplifters.
Chief Inspector Rav Pathania, who leads the Met’s business crime unit, said police did not receive vital digital evidence in as many as four in 5 shoplifting cases reported last year, frustrating efforts to identify offenders more quickly.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Pathania said the issue often came down to retailers being unable to supply CCTV footage or body-worn video recordings of suspects.
“We don’t always get digital evidence back from the retailers,” he said.
The police chief stressed that his comments were not about shifting responsibility on to stores, but about highlighting a major barrier to enforcement at a time when shoplifting remains a growing concern across the capital.
The problem is particularly acute because of the force’s success rate when clear images are available.
According to Pathania, officers are able to identify around 80 per cent of suspects when usable footage is supplied, using crime databases and facial recognition tools to match images against known offenders.
His remarks come amid mounting pressure from retailers for stronger action on retail crime, with M&S among those calling for more support from police and government.
Earlier this month, M&S retail director Thinus Keene said the sector was facing a worsening wave of theft, violence and intimidation, with criminal behaviour becoming “more brazen, more organised and more aggressive”.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Keene said staff were facing abuse and violence on a daily basis, and warned that the problem required a more co-ordinated response across policing, government, and industry.
He said: “We need to recognise this for what it is. A systemic issue. A growing issue. And one that demands a co-ordinated response across government, policing and industry.”
M&S external affairs director Adam Hawksbee also said the retailer had been targeted by organised gangs, leaving staff fearful about coming into work.
The business has invested “tens of millions” into security, but argued that retailers cannot tackle the issue alone.
Pathania acknowledged that, in the years after the pandemic, policing priorities had focused heavily on violent crime. However, he said the Met is now pivoting back towards acquisitive crime, including shoplifting and mobile phone theft.
He argued that the rise in shop theft had been driven by a “perfect storm” of factors, including cost-of-living pressures, retailers moving away from detaining offenders, police attention being diverted towards violent crime, and stronger home and vehicle security making shops a more attractive target for opportunistic thieves and organised gangs.
Despite the ongoing challenges, the Met said progress is being made. Detection rates for shoplifting have nearly doubled under its current approach, while arrests of store thieves have risen by 44 per cent.
Shoplifting offences in London have also fallen by 3.2 per cent over the past year.
One of the ongoing challenges, Pathania said, is the lack of a consistent system across the retail sector for sharing video evidence with police.
Different businesses, and in some cases different stores within the same chain, often follow different procedures, slowing investigations and making it harder to act quickly.
A spokesperson for the mayor of London said Sir Sadiq Khan fully supports the Met’s targeted approach to tackling prolific offenders and retail crime hotspots, adding that there has been a renewed focus on neighbourhood policing across the capital.
