The South London neighborhood where shoplifting is rife and staff ‘don’t even call police anymore’

Retail staff on a South London high street say shoplifting is worse than it’s ever been, saying they don’t even bother calling the police sometimes because they feel nothing will be done. Workers in a number of shops along Norbury High Street have expressed their concerns that shoplifting is becoming commonplace where it was not 10 years ago, and they feel low-level theft is not a priority for the Met Police.

Chintal Patel works at Norbury DIY, a family-run hardware shop that has been on the high street for the past 34 years. He believes shoplifting has gotten much worse in that time. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Thieves know that they can’t be done for anything under £200, so they just take whatever they can. What hurts the most is that staff members get told off by their bosses for trying to stop them.

Read more: Norbury residents rally to save the last bank on the high street from closure

“You’ve got security but they can’t do anything, and because of that, you’re just inviting them to come in and take what they want. Luckily it doesn’t happen here, they come in and see if we’ we’re looking or not.”

While Chintal and his father Bhupendra say they have been fortunate to avoid the shoplifting spike, the same cannot be said for Norbury’s Co-op across the road. According to residents, they have experienced the sharp edge of shoplifting in the area.

A staff member, who wished not to be named, told the LDRS how shoplifting was up 70 percent in the store from last year. He added that only last week the Norbury store had four separate incidents of shoplifting.

He told the LDRS: “They come in throughout the day and just take stuff from the shelves mainly. They’ve taken chocolate and toiletries before but the main thing they go for is the wine as that’s the most expensive thing they can get that’s not behind the counter.

“It’s so frustrating because we have security and staff in the shops at all times and they see it happen, but they can’t do anything about it as they’re told they’re not allowed to apprehend the shoplifter. One time one of our staff members got hit over the head with an ice cream tub when a shoplifter came in.”

When asked about what he thought was behind this recent spike in crime, his answer focused on two main themes. These were the economy and sentencing. He believes the cost of living crisis has driven some people towards shoplifting as a way to make ends meet. However, he admits that familiar faces carry out most of the shop theft.

Common among the shop staff the LDRS spoke to was the understanding that a small number of petty criminals were shoplifting along the high street. Staff at the Co-op believe this is because current sentencing does not act as an effective deterrent.

The staff member added: “The only time we don’t have shoplifters is when they’re locked away, but then they’re back out again soon after.”

Currently, under the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 ‘low-value shoplifting’ of goods under the value of £200 can only attract a maximum sentence of six months in custody. According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the effect of this legislation has been to ‘deprioritise it in the eyes of the police’.

They also said that, as a result, police ‘would be less likely to turn up to what they see as low-level theft’. According to the BRC, shoplifting cost retailers £1.8 billion last year.

This legislation has been called the ‘shoplifter’s charter’ by Labor and it is expected that they will reverse the 2014 act and replace it with harsher penalties for those who steal goods under the value of £200. Guillaume Raillard, of the local community group Litter Free Norbury, agrees that shoplifting has flourished under this legislation. He told the LDRS: “It is indeed a worrying trend.

“I have the feeling that because people seem to get away with it, they just get on with it, spreading chaos and worrying the residents of Norbury. I’ve seen many group chats of people really upset and worried about the brazen daylight shoplifting attacks at the Co-op and up the road in Lambeth at Sainsbury’s, a few times in the same day at times.”

Rafiullah Miakheil of the A One Household shop has experienced the absence of policing first-hand. He told the LDRS how, despite having CCTV cameras installed, there seems to be no way of bringing the shoplifters to justice.

He said: “It’s a waste of time to call the police. Even when they do come they can’t do anything. They don’t even ask for the CCTV footage.

“Then they say ‘do you want to take them to court’, and I don’t think it’s worth it for 10 or 15 pounds. They only come for stabbings, for these things they don’t come. The service is poor. “

Despite the recent spike, Miakheil believes Norbury is not alone when facing this trend. He said: “We have a shop in Sydenham as well, it’s the same thing there. Yesterday someone took £20 of goods from the shop and when my colleague called the police they told him not to run and just leave it. (Thieves) just come in and take random stuff, anything they like, like they’re shopping.”

Some of the shop workers also suggested that this spike in crime was symptomatic of a general sense of the decline on the high street. They pointed to several shop closures, including the imminent closure of Norbury’s last bank branch as another reason for concern.

A spokesperson for the Met said: “Our New Met for London Plan is involving Londoners to give them a say in how their areas are policed. As part of this work, we are collaborating with business and retail leads right across London to identify what matters to them, including the safety of shop-based workers and shoplifting.

“While it is not realistic for the Met to respond to every case of shoplifting in London due to demand, where a crime is being committed, a suspect is on the scene, and the situation has or is likely to become heated or violent, our call handlers will assess this and seek to dispatch officers where appropriate. A London-wide roll-out of Op Retail is now in place, following a successful pilot, allowing more effective and stream-lined reporting of shoplifting where no offender has been detained or violence occurred. This provides consistency and confidence for retailers to report crimes.

“We work with retail leads in London and we know first-hand the impact shoplifting and attacks on shop workers is having on individual staff and the wider business community. We understand that staff who are trained to challenge and de-escalate may feel obliged to intervene but the safety of those involved is our primary concern.”

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