East of England Co-op’s ongoing partnership with Essex police and local retailers is delivering significant results in combatting retail crime.
Having worked collaboratively for over ten years, the retail group and Essex Police share intelligence, which in turn, has been “proven to lead to greater success in bringing offenders to justice”.
In the first three months of 2024, their joint efforts resulted in offenders receiving 672 weeks in prison (or suspended), four years’ worth of Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs) and 116 weeks of community service.
Lee Hammond, head of profit improvement at East of England Co-op, highlighted the success of their approach: “Working with the Police in Essex has allowed us to take a more practical approach to dealing with crime against our business and our colleagues.
“We recognise that if we put the time into gathering evidence, the police can make the arrest and there is a higher chance of a conviction. In some cases, offenders are getting a good length of custodial sentences.”
The partnership has also been successful in securing convictions for some of the most prolific offenders the company and colleagues have faced.
Hammond added: “We’ve already started work with other Police forces across East Anglia to repeat the success we’ve had in Essex across the rest of our business”.
The East of England Co-op works with the police by producing evidence packs, collecting statements from its colleagues and completing all the relevant paperwork to build a case to hand over to the police.
Sergeant Christian Denning of Essex Police’s Business Crime Team stressed the need for more collaborations between businesses and police forces: “Shoplifting is a problem which the police and retailers need to resolve together and communication is key to this.
“Essex Police has been working with East of England Co-op for a long time and, by being open and honest with each other, we’ve been able to develop solutions together to help reduce shop theft and keep retail staff and businesses safe and secure.”
Denning explained that Essex Police’s business crimes officers can advise retailers on ways they can make simple changes to their store layouts to make it more difficult for shoplifters to operate unseen and on other security measures.
“They also provide us with the evidence we need to apply for criminal behaviour orders, which courts can impose on the worst offenders. They can include bans from entering certain shops and requirements to attend drug and alcohol treatment services.
“By tackling shoplifting together, and from many angles, we are working to reduce the number of thefts, to remove the need to offend in the first place and to keep retail staff safe from harm.”
The ongoing success of the partnership was highlighted during a Safer Business Action (SaBa) day on 31 August 2024.
The event, held at the co-op’s new store near Chelmsford train station, aimed to talk to retailers and further develop local, trusted relations between store colleagues and the Police, understand the crimes that affect them and demonstrate the importance of tackling crime to protect and safeguard frontline staff.
On the day, East of England Co-op and Essex Police went door-to-door to speak to retailers and business owners.
They provided practical advice on how retail crime is an issue that can “only be solved by collaboration between both shops and crime agencies”.
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