Security guards are being told not to stop shoplifters over health and safety fears despite a crime wave sweeping the country. The Telegraph has the story.
Union bosses are telling their members to “watch, report and be an expert witness for police”, but are explicitly ordering them not to intervene against theft.
The Security Industry Federation (SIF) has told its members, “do not put yourselves in harm’s way for those who may not support you afterwards”.
The union’s General Secretary Daniel Garnham said that while this diktat went “against the instincts and principles of many good security professionals… someone else’s stock is not more important than your safety, your career or your licence”.
He added: “Security workers cannot continue carrying all of the personal and professional risk while others avoid responsibility.”
The retail union Usdaw, which has 360,000 members, is also telling its members “not to intervene against potentially dangerous criminals and to keep themselves safe”.
GMB – one of Britain’s biggest unions representing thousands of security guards – said that until better regulation was in place, “retailers cannot expect security guards to put themselves at physical risk just to protect their bottom lines”.
Retailers are facing a shoplifting epidemic in Britain, with offences surging by 133% over the past four years on the back of a cost of living crisis.
Supermarkets have come under fire for so-called ‘deter-not-detain’ policies designed to keep staff safe, with videos circulating on social media showing criminals walking out of shops unchallenged.
Waitrose sacked a member of staff who had worked for the supermarket for 17 years after he stopped a suspected shoplifter stealing a bag of luxury Easter eggs, it emerged this month.
Morrisons was also criticised for firing one of its store managers after he tackled a prolific thief last week in breach of the supermarket’s policy.
The unions’ advice is thought to be the first widespread instance of security guards officially being told not to take action.
It threatens to undermine Sir Keir Starmer’s efforts to clamp down on rising crime as he seeks to reset his premiership in the wake of the Mandelson scandal and in the run-up to the local elections.
The SIF explained it had adopted its stance and will retain it until the supermarket industry comes up with a unified policy on how to tackle shoplifters.
Garnham said guards were “expected to deter theft, protect staff and reassure the public” but that workers at different shops were being given completely different instructions.
“Across the UK there is no joined-up approach,” he said, which was putting guards in “an impossible position”.
“Security workers moving between different stores and contracts are often expected to work to different rules in different places. In one site they may be told to observe and report only. In another they may be expected to stop and detain offenders. In another they may face disciplinary action for trying to intervene at all.
“This is unfair on workers, unsafe for the public and completely unacceptable in a profession that plays such an important role in keeping people safe,” he said.
He added that he had written to supermarkets “to push for a joined-up approach and to ensure clear and consistent instructions would be put in place across the board.”
Worth reading in full.
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This degenerating island I’m proud to call home has become pathologically tolerant of selected crimes, and obsessively intolerant of non-crimes.
First of all, there is a huge double standard here. Does anyone seriously think that Muslim shopowners are going to let customers loot their shops without raising a hue & cry to get the whole Muslim street chasing after the looters and beating them to a pulp?
Secondly, encouraging Looting is one of the bog-standard Communist methods of launching their “revolutions”, and the wealthy shoplifters are participating in this. I remember a London shopkeeper in Kensington said decades ago that the worst shoplifters were the wealthiest people, who seemed to feel they were entitled to steal whatever they wanted from peasants like him, and got a weird thrill out of sneaking stuff past him.
Thirdly, there’s this (see Point 8):
Frankfurt School 11-Point Plan to Destroy the West
1. Create Racism Offences for Whites Only.
2. Induce Trauma through Injustice.
3. Teach Sex and Sodomy to Children.
4. Undermine Parents’ and Teachers’ Authority.
5. Force Mass Immigration to Destroy Ethnic Identity.
6. Create Confusion by Continual Change.
7. Empty the Churches.
8. Encourage Crime to Destabilize Society.
9. Create Dependency on the State by Welfare Benefits.
10. Promote Drugs, Pornography and Alcoholism.
11. Encourage the Breakdown of the Family.
Interestingly the Frankfurt School was apparently founded by one Felix Weil to promote Marxism, using his father’s money… they always use someone else’s money, don’t they?
Oh, thanks for that interesting historical snippet! It ties in with something I once read about Karl Marx’s correspondence with a friend, in which they were both gloating and joking about a happy event Marx was impatiently waiting for: the death of a kindly relative, who had bequeathed Marx a generous amount of money in his will, so that Marx, “The Champion of the Working Class”, wouldn’t have to worry about getting a job…
And isn’t it odd how the wealthy shoplifters would be the first to shriek hysterically about a jewellery heist…
The stores just charge the real shoppers more to cover the ‘shrinkage’. Yet again decent people fund the scumbags.
Ok, so health and safety, don’t put yourself in harms way… blah blah blah. But the upshot of all of that is that you can, within the law, walk out of a store with goods to the total value of £199.99 and security won’t stop you and police won’t arrest you.
Not really so much security guards any more. More like “passive observers of crime” in a uniform.
So looting, up to the value of £199.99 (per incident I assume, so work your way around that retail park and fill the van) is now effectively legal…
So for a retail park with 10 stores, that’s just under £2000… but wait, that’s just per day. At the end of the working week you’ve got just under £10,000 worth of stolen items to flog on ebay (all within the law of course)… I’m starting to like this business model!
Keep doing what you normally do folks. Ignore the efforts by gov’t puppetmasters. Simply ignore. Looks like the majority do. Look at courtroom 2 yesterday at the old Bailey, a case with the three young lads who set fire to the pm’s property. Oh I forgot it was banned from being reported on. I read it on X. More to come each day. An interesting story. Cannot imagine why it was banned can you?
A symptom of the feminised, cowardly, communist nation that we have become.
Time for a right wing strongman to take power and kick our arses into normality.
Cut the welfare budget by £180 billion (the amount required to cover the budget deficit and get our accounts back to a small, annual surplus). Force all able
bodied welfare claimants who are not physically disabled (to the point where they cannot do some work) to work by cleaning the streets, collecting litter, clearing graffiti, and clearing up the dumped crap abandoned in laybys and fields by the immigrant scumbags who tend to do that.
Cut overseas aid to zero.
Expand defence budget to 5% of GDP.
Kick out millions of Boris wave immigrants, and all illegals.
Punish all countries where illegals come from by cutting their visas, and economic advantages with us.
We need urgent, harsh action.
Hilarious that Archie Norman has been whining about M&S shoppers taking advantage of self-service to take items without paying…
Why wouldn’t they when, repeatedly, they see people whose benefits they are paying for walk out of the shop without paying, thereby inflating the price of what the rest of us buy to cover ‘shrinkage’ and, you’re so unconcerned about, generally, it that you don’t even bother to stop them.
If you’re expecting their morals to do the work for you, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Monkey see, monkey do…
Colloquially known as ‘urban scarecrows’ security work provides makework for otherwise unemployed new Britains. Have you noticed though that they often seem quite happy to get stuck in on those who turn up to film migrant hotels?
It has nothing to do with the so called “cost of living crisis”.
It is a “destruction of culture” crisis. Don’t pretend it’s a necessity. These are scum bags, rats, disgusting humans.
I saw an article a couple of days ago (it was in the Telegraph and behind a paywall so it’s not worth sharing a link) about very well off under 30’s, particularly in New York but also in London, shoplifting from the likes of Wholefoods but also other large chain stores as “civil resistance” because of the profits these companies make/the amount their CEO is paid compared to shopfloor staff. They’d then brag about it on social media, is it any wonder other people then think a bit of shoplifting is fine?
How lovely. I think people like that are the worst. I doubt they care about the low paid workers, who of course will be the first to lose and whose lives are made unpleasant. Envy, and the compulsion to be seen as virtuous.
Good point. I’ve read that the wealthy shoplifters also like to call it “liberating” the goods from their owners, using standard Communist jargon.
Yes, and sadly it is your gov’ts puppet masters who are driving the destruction of your culture. Continue to maintain your culture by simply acknowledging right from wrong. You know exactly which is which.
“Across the UK there is no joined-up approach,”…
There is, and it’s called common sense and a simple belief in the idea that theft is wrong and should not be tolerated and that individuals must be free to take whatever action they feel able to take against the thief. The law simply needs to butt out and let good people use their judgement.
Oh, sorry, I forget – independent thought is the hallmark of conspiracy theorists and dangerous people who don’t like Starmer.
Not entirely sure vigilantism is the best way forward here… though I have nothing better to offer and am increasingly drawn to it for a number of offences where clubbing the perpetrator like a baby seal, seems optimal.
Vigilantism? I thought you went to the store for groceries. The stores problems are not yours. let them take it up with your goofy gov’t. They can always shut shop as an alternative.
There you are, you figured it out. Do your daily shop and ignore the noise. The shops will get fed up with stealing at some point.
Who is “the shops”? Staff and customers of those shops are already fed up with stealing. The bosses of the shops seem not to be. I don’t know what I would do personally, but if anyone chooses to try and detain a shoplifter or prevent them from stealing, I certainly don’t disapprove.
If security guards aren’t going to stop shoplifters they could do something useful and explain to people using self service checkouts they can put their bags in the bagging area, the clue is in the name, then put each item in a bag once they’ve scanned it rather than scanning all their shopping, paying for it then spending ages putting it in a bag while a queue builds up behind them.
Surely I’m not the only person who can multi task and doesn’t enjoy wasting time in a queue because other people can’t.
In my Sainsburys if I put my bag(s) in the bagging area first … the machine tells me to remove the item as it hasn’t been scanned.
Okay, thank you for sharing, now get on with your wonderful life znd ignore the gov’t noise. That is all it is.
I hold the bag then shove my groceries in one by one after I’ve scanned them individually. Then no hold ups. Then it’s typically my ‘lucky day’ that I’m the chosen one to have half my stuff checked by staff and so they unpack the items I just packed. Then I curse and wonder why I ever thought this was going to be quicker than standing in line at the manned till. But had I gone to the manned till you can be assured I’d be behind the person who picked up an item with no barcode and so the cashier has to ring for assistance and cue the delay. It’s really a gamble and we all must make that call. Personally, I think it’s quicker just to shoplift.
You’re lucky if there’s a manned till open. My local Tesco Metro has 5 or 6 manned tills, there’s sometimes one open sometimes not.
Shoplifting would definitely be quicker than waiting for the person supervising the self service checkouts to stop texting with their back to the checkouts and verify age restricted items. I made a sarcastic comment about her texting and now whenever she’s on duty and I need assistance she looks at me like I’ve just had a dump on the floor for asking her to do her job.
Don’t use shops that don’t offer good service. It really is not that hard.
Personally, I think it’s easier just to order everything from Ocado. Cheaper than Tesco as well
Amen brother.
Have your groceries delivered, you never have to dnter the stores again. Problem solved.
Self service checkouts can be little sods at times. Scan a heavy item, put it in a bag then in the bagging area. This fools the ones in Tesco.
Stop using thdm and they will go away.
Yes, okay, that is nice. Don’t you see, this is being done intentionally to upset the majority of people who know right from wrong. It will stop soon.
Stop, please. You must learn to ignore this gov’t noise. It is done intentionally to get your dander up. You are a decent human being that knows right from wrong. No need to go any further.
Or we could do something radical and employee people who are experts at doing the job ‘checkout cashier’ and let them make it as efficient as possible? Can’t stand self checkout and go out of my way to avoid it…
After resisting for a year or so, I now prefer self checkouts, because I have plenty of time to pack things up carefully before the long walk home, so they don’t get smashed, bashed or squashed along the way. The same if you’re going home on the bus.
At normal checkouts, the people queuing behind you often get very irritable and impatient, because they are used to quickly chucking everything higgledy-piggledy in bags to put in their cars and drive away.
What is the point of security guards then? Do they not get training and paid appropriately to “guard” and “keep secure”? Or is it just for show?
The senior management of these firms are despicable. If the shoplifting scrotes were in their executive toilets every day nicking loo roll, the situation would soon get sorted. But they expect their low-paid staff and their customers to share their space daily with scum. The management are no better than the scum they tolerate.
Stop, right there. You know the answer to your own question. You know right from wrong. No need to take one more minute to ask who what where when why. You already know. Carry on with your life, ignore the noise.
I’m all good thanks, having a blast.
A cardboard cutout of a security guard is a better choice… at least you don’t have to pay it!
Like the fake hawk shapes used at football grounds and the like to intimidate pigeons. A scarecrow for shoplifters. An AI powered robot?
Maybe we are being prepared for Robocops, allow the crime spree to continue and rise, and then the public will accept, nay demand lethal action!
What a strange time to be alive. You can get points on your driving licence for doing 22mph through town, get fined for putting rubbish in the wrong bin, go to prison for a tweet, but can walk out of a shop with anything you like and no one will stop you.
All part of the planning for the dystopian society that is the future.
On,y if you allow it.
Excellent post.
My first thought was “bloody unions” and “elf n safety gone mad”, but I really can’t blame the unions nor the guards.
Men have lost their jobs for tackling thieves for F’s sake! Why would anyone try to protect their employer’s bottom line if said employer will then fire them?
PS. I heard (on Talk radio I think) someone suggest security guards should be encouraged (more pay?) to become Special Constables. Not sure of the intricacies of it, but it seems like there might be something in that…
Some few years ago a chap I knew left his employment as a barista to work as a security guard for one of the discount supermarket brands. A few weeks later he returned, explaining that being expected to risk being stabbed for minimum wage with no protective equipment or clothing was frankly a joke and he had no intention of becoming a statistic.
Totally agree with him. Security guards should have proper training, stab vests and pay that reflects the fact they may have to put themselves in harms way. Body cameras so they can show that they didn’t use excessive force and full backing from their employer and the police/courts if they use an appropriate amount of force are also needed.
Glocks and permission to use them on malefactors.
We have become terminally soft, as a society.
Our present (but it will not last much longer) comparative albeit declining fast, wealth and comfort was not achieved by yielding to bullies and thieves.
Well said. Or at least tasers. The security industry across the pond will be laughing their socks off in response to news such as this.