‘Police aren’t interested’ in tackling shoplifting, says M&S boss

Archie Norman, chairman of Marks and Spencer, has claimed that retailers should accept that “police aren’t interested” in tackling shoplifting on LBC’s breakfast show. He said: “We get very little help from the police. I think we have to accept that the police are not interested in this sort of crime anymore. Whether we like it or not, that’s the way it’s gone.” The news comes after figures released in April showed that shoplifting offences in the year ending 2023 increased by 37% (to 430,104 offences) compared with the previous 12 months (315,040 offences). It was also revealed last week that just 3% of shoplifting offences are solved in hotspots. Talking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Norman stated that M&S has spent “a lot of money on store detectives as well as camera systems and other technology” as his staff get “very little help from the police”. Norman said that thefts at M&S reduced significantly as a result of the company’s efforts He added: “"We spent a lot of money on it," he said, including on "store detectives", as well as camera systems and other technology. Not least, because if somebody is threatened, we can intervene.” Norman pointed out that since the pandemic, there has been an increase in thefts, and other criminal behaviour has also been fueled by the cost of living crisis. He said: “When people are hard up, or particularly when there’s a growth in other forms of crime, particularly drugs-related crime, then one way of financing it is to go and steal from shops… it’s understandable given what we’ve been through in the last couple of years, we’ve seen more of that.” On asking Norman if self-checkouts are a good idea, given that they have been blamed in part for making shoplifting easier, Norman said: "I'm a believer in service. I think that people who come to our shops have to feel like they've got that human touch. "Now a lot of people actually don't really want to stand at a belted checkout, but they do want to feel as human beings around to help out. And I think some stores now [are] pretty well fully-automated, no touch robotic type of feel with security gates. I don't think that should be the future for M&S."