New crime of assaulting a shop worker

Violence against workers in the retail industry is to be made a separate criminal offence. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced that the government would be amending its Criminal Justice Bill to bring in the new offence.

It will carry a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine. This is 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 to tackle high levels of shoplifting, 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, with breaches bringing a maximum sentence of five years.

Earlier this year, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) published a report saying violent and abusive incidents against shopworkers had increased 50% between 2021/22 and 2022/23.