The Home Office has urged retailers to continue reporting crimes to the police and has assured that additional funding will help boost frontline crime fighting.

Responding to Spar retailer Julian Taylor-Green’s complaints over the police’s lack of response to a Christmas Day shoplifting incident, a Home Office spokesman told C-Store that last month’s Police Funding Settlement of up to £970m of additional funding would enable police forces to “meet their financial pressures, to recruit more officers and improve efficiencies for frontline crime fighting”.

He added: “The government recognises the impact that all forms of crime, including shoplifting, has on retailers. We encourage retailers to report these crimes to the police so that they can be investigated.

“We work closely with the retail sector and law enforcement to tackle all forms of retail crime through the National Retail Crime Steering Group, which is co-chaired by the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, and the British Retail Consortium.”

But he also stressed that decisions about frontline policing, and how resources are best deployed, are for Chief Constables and democratically-accountable Police and Crime Commissioners.

Julian, owner of Spar Lindford in Hampshire, suffered a theft of multiple cases of Coca-Cola by a group of three males on 25 December, but the police refused to take action. The store is also recovering from an ATM ram-raid last year.

On average, each convenience store spends £4,242 on crime prevention per year, with CCTV the top area for investment, according to the ACS crime report 2018.

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