The boss of one of Britain’s biggest supermarket chains has said three of his staff have been left HIV positive after being attacked with infected needles.
Richard Walker, executive chairman of Iceland Foods, made the revelation on Friday as he spoke out about increasing violence against store staff.
The needle attacks were carried out by shoplifters, who are using increasingly violent means to steal from stores, he said.
“Colleagues are being slapped, punched, and threatened with a range of weapons including knives, hammers, firearms, and hypodermic needles,” he said.
“Three of our store colleagues are now HIV positive as a result of these needle attacks.
“Other assaults have resulted in injuries ranging from a broken jaw to a fractured skull.”
Mr. Walker has now called for more powers to tackle the criminals, telling the news site his chain is losing £20 million a year through shoplifting.
He said security guards should be given the power to search suspects, which they currently can only do with their consent.
He also complained that data protection laws—in particular General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—have stopped his employees from sharing photos of shoplifters with nearby stores or posting their faces on notice boards.
‘War’
“We’ve had a run in in the past with the Information Commissioner’s Office because sharing photos of known shoplifters with other stores on the high street via WhatsApp groups apparently breaches their human rights under GDPR,” he said.“When I started working in stores I used to print of faces on the board so staff could be aware but even that may not be allowed now. We are investing record amounts on security but we need legislation and government support.”
At present, store security guards have no more powers than the ordinary public.
They are unable to search suspects without their consent, and while they can perform a citizen’s arrest, this leaves them open to being sued.
“The criminals know this, particularly the organised one, they know their rights,” Mr. Walker told MailOnline.
“We need more powers for security personnel to search suspects and detain them until police arrive.”
The Iceland chief claimed that 70 percent of calls from his chain’s staff for police help over store thefts are ignored.
“It’s not necessarily their fault,” he said. “They need to have the resources to allow them to take this crime epidemic seriously.
“We also need the courts to impose serious sentences. It’s almost become seen as a crime without punishment.”
Mr. Walker added, ‘We call them frontline colleagues because they are the first point of contact with customers but sometimes it feels like they’re on the frontline of a war.”
Epidemic
On Thursday, John Lewis Chairwoman Dame Sharon White said shoplifting has become an “epidemic.”Project Pegasus will use CCTV pictures and data provided by the shops to get a better understanding of shoplifters’ operations.
Data on shoplifting incidents from various retailers will be collected and looked at by analysts and intelligence officers under the £600,000 initiative.
Dame Sharon said that some areas had become “shells of their former selves” owing to violent attacks and repeated offenders “causing havoc” in shops.
She also told the programme that some reported incidents have not been responded to by the police.
The retail boss also said she believed the recent shoplifting spate was being driven by “crime groups” rather than thefts linked to the soaring cost of living.
Dame Sharon said she met with Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, earlier this week to discuss shoplifting.
The retailer called on the government to change legislation in the England and Wales to make it a criminal offence to abuse shopworkers, in line with current rules in Scotland.
Last month, the group’s supermarket arm Waitrose said it was offering free tea and coffee to police officers in an effort to boost their presence around stores.
The company said it mainly saw a rise in the cost of crime owing to theft, as well as “related wastage.”
Dame Sharon said: “Like other retailers, we have seen more activity linked to organised crime.
“We have raised the issue because the safety of our staff is incredibly important, as a business we also feel this is an important issue from a societal point of view.”
German discount supermarket chain Lidl said separately on Thursday that it was stepping up investment in store security amid increasing rates of shoplifting, by ramping up CCTV coverage and rolling out more body-worn cameras in its outlets.
‘Zero Tolerance’
Earlier this month, policing minister Chris Philp said police must probe every single incident of shoplifting, even if the goods fall below £200.Mr. Philp said there must now be a “zero-tolerance” approach to theft where there is CCTV evidence, including those of lower values.
Police chiefs have been accused of effectively decriminalising thefts worth less than £200 since changes to the law meant they were handled with a fine by post.
The minister previously told Parliament that unless stringent action is taken against petty shop theft, British cities could end up like San Francisco, where shops were forced to close because of an escalation in violent shoplifting.
“We have seen that elsewhere in the world—I think in particular about San Francisco, as well as other American cities—where both the police and store security guards appear not to intervene and, as a consequence, stores are raided and stolen from on a large scale multiple times a day,” he told MPs in June.
According to figures from the British Retail Consortium, retail thefts across the sector in England and Wales rose by 26 percent in 2022.
The retail body’s crime survey suggested that nearly 850 incidents were taking place every day, with staff facing physical assault and being threatened with weapons on some occasions.
