ASSAULTS on Co-op shopworkers have increased by a third in a year, the food retailer warned today, piling pressure on Tory ministers to drop their “long-held opposition” to introducing legislation protecting staff in the sector.

Co-op Food revealed that there had been more than 300,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour in its stores last year, with the number of assaults rising to a record more than 1,300 in a report detailing a 10-point plan to tackle the “alarming” increase in the offences.

The report was written by University of London criminologist Professor Emmeline Taylor ahead of a parliamentary debate on whether to making attacking a shopworker a specific offence as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill.