ASSAULTING shop staff will be made a separate criminal offence after a government U-turn in the face of a long-running campaign that Usdaw said was “long overdue.”
In October ministers said they did not think legislating to create a new offence was “required or will be most effective.”
But today Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to bring in the new offence in England and Wales during a visit to Horsham, West Sussex.
Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: “The dither and delay of this government on this issue, over many years, has led to thousands of shopworkers needlessly suffering physical and mental injury.
“I hope that whatever the government is proposing will be substantial and effective in giving shopworkers, key workers in every community, the respect that they have long deserved and regrettably too often do not receive.”
Over the past six months, more than 47,000 people have signed a petition calling for the creation of a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) published a report saying violent and abusive incidents against shopworkers had increased by 50 per cent between 2021/22 and 2022/23.
BRC chairwoman Helen Dickinson said that “the voices of the three million people working in retail are finally being heard.”
She added: “The impact of retail violence has steadily worsened, with people facing racial abuse, sexual harassment, threatening behaviour, physical assault and threats with weapons, often linked to organised crime.
“Victims are ordinary hard-working people — teenagers taking on their first job, carers looking for part-time work, parents working around childcare.”
The new offence will carry a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine, the same sentence for the existing offence of common assault.
Repeat offenders could also be forced to wear an electronic tag, as could persistent shoplifters, under amendments to the Bill currently making its way through Parliament.
The government also plans to pilot community sentencing measures with an as yet unnamed police force, along with greater use of facial recognition technology to identify people wanted by the police in crowded areas.
Judges already have the power to ban repeat offenders from certain shops under criminal behaviour orders.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government’s proposals are “a pale imitation” of her own party’s plans.
