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A new report by the British Retail Consortium states that Nottinghamshire Police, Hampshire Police and Greater Manchester Police were the best responders to retail crime.




A new report by the British Retail Consortium has commended Nottinghamshire Police as one of three forces providing the most effective response to retail crime.

The Crime Survey Report, which was published this week, focuses on how forces are dealing with incidents such as shoplifting and violence against retail staff.

The Consortium, which has a membership of more than 200 major retailers and thousands of independent stores, examined forces across the country.

Nottinghamshire Police patrolling in Newark
Nottinghamshire Police patrolling in Newark

The report states that Nottinghamshire Police, Hampshire Police and Greater Manchester Police were “nominated as the best responders” to retail crime.

The report added that “an effective police response is vital to reduce incidents of violence and abuse; to make it worthwhile to report incidents; to secure prosecutions and convictions; and to enable the police to establish the actual statistics and allocate resources accordingly. Just as the police need to respond, retailers need to report.”

Assistant chief constable Suk Verma, responsible for local policing, said: “It is very encouraging that Nottinghamshire is leading the way in the fight against retail crime. This is a testament to our close partnership work with the retail sector.

“We know full well the impact that retail crime is having on our city and county. Our business community is vital for our city, towns and villages to thrive and that is why we will continue to ensure those who cause the most harm to the retail sector are dealt with robustly.

“Last year, we established four priority tasking teams to target persistent and complex individuals.

“In addition to this we have remodelled our neighbourhood policing approach to ensure that our officers are in the right places at the right times to deal with the problems affecting our communities and that includes shoplifting.

“We have a higher positive outcome rate for retail crime than other similar sized forces in the country, which means we have put some of our most prolific shoplifters behind bars.

“Retail crime is usually carried out by the same people to fund drug or alcohol addictions and therefore we have a Prevention Hub in place to deal with the root causes.

“Our Offender to Rehab scheme offers those who target our city and county retailers the opportunity to change their offending behaviour. However, if they don’t, we will use all the powers at our disposal to make it as difficult as possible for them to operate here.

“In the city alone, we made more than 300 shoplifting arrests last year and this proactive approach will continue this year.

“We have also secured a high proportion of Criminal Behaviour Orders which ban offenders from particular areas or in some cases an entire city or town centre.

“When an offender breaches this order, it makes it much easier for us to take action and ensure they are put before the courts.

“We also have Op Motivation where we target those who buy stolen goods so just because you haven’t stolen the items doesn’t mean you won’t find yourself in court.

“While this report is encouraging and reflects many of the changes we have enacted, we recognise that there is much more work to do, and we remain fully committed”.

“We completely understand the frustration from businesses who are being targeted. No one should have to go to work and have their livelihood taken from them and in some occasions be threatened with violence.

“We want our business community to thrive and for shoplifters to pay the price for the crimes they have committed. It is important to stress that this is not just a policing issue.

“It is a partnership approach to ensure that we make our city and county a harder place for shoplifters to strike. This means working with businesses to improve their security and councils to ensure preventative and investigative measures such as CCTV are in place.

“It is also important that the business community know that this is a priority for us, and that they call us right away once an incident occurs. We are striving to ensure that every offence is reported to us so that we maximise every opportunity to bring offenders to justice.”

Alex Flint, ceo of It's in Nottingham, said: "As Nottingham's Business Improvement District, we play an important role in assisting city centre retailers to minimise the impacts of business crime.

“We are extremely grateful for the support of Nottinghamshire Police in this and are proud that the work they do to reduce retail crime in Nottingham has been recognised.

“Strong, collaborative partnerships like the one we have with Nottinghamshire Police are critical to success, and to providing businesses with the reassurance that we are fully committed to making Nottingham a safe place to work, and to trade."

Nottinghamshire Police and Crime commissioner Gary Godden added: “This report by the British Retail Consortium is really pleasing because it tells us that retailers themselves rate Nottinghamshire Police as one of the very best in the country at tackling retail crime.

“Figures published this week by the Office for National Statistics back up why they may think this - as they show there was a zero per cent increase shop theft in Nottinghamshire over the last year – compared to a 23% rise, on average, across the rest of the country.

“The proactive work by Nottinghamshire Police, in partnership with retailers, and the preventative work through the Offender to Rehab programme, which part-funded by my Office, are having a real impact, which is really reassuring for retailers and the wider public of Nottinghamshire.”



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