Peter Chapman, chairman of the sentencing panel of the Magistrates Association, has strongly advised members of the Retail Loss Prevention Fashion Forum to report the full extent of crimes on their premises in a bid to impact the severity of sentences handed down by the judiciary.
“Threats of violence or intimidation and abuse should be mentioned,” said Chapman when addressing a London delegation, “in addition to the crime of shop theft as this will influence the bench using powers at their disposal, and will have the impact of sending more of a deterrent message to potential thieves.”
There’s a current trend among shop staff to under report offences simply because they have become ‘numb’ in relation to daily abuse and the growing sense of police indifference to business crime.
Chapman told Alan Grocott of Next – a leading member of the Fashion Forum – that staff will be faced by “a sympathetic hearing” from the criminal justice system if they report all the facts, particularly where aggravating circumstances are present.
Grocott, a former Greater Manchester Police detective and also a member of the British Retail Consortium’s heads of security grouping, said: “We’re not looking for more custodial sentences, but we do want a greater deterrent for first time offenders to stop them from becoming repeat offenders.”
He continued: “This would free up court time and judicial resources so that magistrates might concentrate more of their attentions on career criminals and organised crime gangs, and find ways to deal with those whose lives have become inextricably linked to crime because they’re feeding an expensive drug or alcohol habit.”
Taking business crime more seriously
Representatives of The Fashion Forum – which comprises the heads of loss prevention for the majority of the High Street’s fashion stores – met with members of the Magistrates Association as part of its drive to get the criminal justice system to take business crime more seriously and not simply treat it as an anti-social behaviour issue.
The Sentencing Advisory Panel had conducted its own research among almost 1500 cases of store theft, and discovered that only 5% of those thieves were first time offenders. On average, an individual appearing in court had 19 previous convictions for a total of 42 different offences, 21 of which were for stealing from shops.
Today, many offences are dealt with out of court and, of almost 50,000 fixed penalty notices (which should only be issued once), 50% are never paid.
“More retailers are now using store banning orders, the breach of which would be deemed to be aggravating circumstances,” said Chapman, who also stated that the courts had all the guidelines they needed to deal appropriately with retail theft, but that sentencing was constrained by the quality of information brought before those court.
He went on to say that those appearing in court for first offences are usually dealt with by way of a small fine, but persistent offenders or those who plan their crime and aggravate the circumstances – for example by using foil-lined bags or physical/verbal abuse – or breach an ASBO/store banning notice would be dealt with more severely, with anything up to short custodial sentences in certain instances.
With breaches of banning orders and ASBOs the magistrates have greater powers to impose tougher sentences.
“We do not simply make sentences up, but we always look for aggravating circumstances where planning, abuse or intimidation have been used as determined by the guidelines,” stated Chapman.
“We have the tools to deal with retail crime offenders fairly, but we need to have all of the facts in front of us to help us make individual decisions.”
Powers for more deterrent sentencing
Alan Grocott commented: “We were very encouraged by the comments from Peter Chapman as there are powers to deliver more deterrent sentencing. It’s clear that retailers must report all the relevant facts of the crime to provide the magistrates with the ammunition to do their jobs.”
As far as Grocott’s concerned, the figures prove that cautions, PNDs and other out of court disposals reflect the fact that the police often treat retail crime like a public nuisance rather than a crime.
“In fact, the evidence suggests that householders face tougher penalties for putting the wrong rubbish in the wrong bin than they would for the criminal offence of stealing. This means that, when thieves inevitably end up in court, they’ve already clocked up a long list of previous convictions that we believe could be avoided with a greater focus upon deterrence early on.”
The advice supports the Fashion Forum’s campaign against non-reporting adopted by some town centre partnerships where unilateral policies such as logging crimes under a certain value of theft have been encouraged by retailers and the police.
Forum members have met with a number of town centre partnership managers to argue that its members will withdraw from schemes that introduce such initiatives without consultation.
The Fashion Forum is the longest standing Loss Prevention Forum facilitated by ORIS and has also held high level meetings with bodies including the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Metropolitan Police Service, the City of London Police, Greater Manchester Police, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, eBay, the BRC, the Anti-Counterfeiting Group and the Information Commissioner.Riots deal bitter blow to August High Street sales
Riots take heavy toll on sales figures
The courts have been stretched to breaking point by the worst unrest seen on Britain’s streets for decades, and for retailers the fall-out from a week of widespread looting and destruction has taken a heavy toll on August’s sales figures.
The latest BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor states that UK retail sales values were 0.6% lower on a like-for-like basis when compared with the figures from August 2010, when sales had risen by 1.0%. On a total basis, sales were up 1.5% against a 2.8% increase in August 2010.
Mid-market retailers reported an overall year-on-year sales drop of 2.2%, making August the worst month for like-for-like sales in two years.
With consumer confidence already fragile thanks to a combination of job cuts, pay freezes and some wretched performances from the stock market, it would appear the sight of hooded youths ransacking High Street stalwarts like Currys and JD Sports (along with local independents) further deterred consumers from parting with their hard-earned cash.
Even areas not affected by the trouble directly felt the pinch as police service advice to close early ate into trading hours.
All sectors witnessed year-on-year sales dips in the four weeks until 28 August. Fashion and homeware sales both slumped by 2.4%, with the former seeing more mainstream brands hit particularly hard by the drop in footfall. Despite modest gains in luxury sales, non-fashion sales still dropped by 1.8%.
Don Williams, national head of retail and wholesale at BDO LLP, commented: “Ever since the recession hit, smart retailers have been working flat out to keep consumers spending in an extremely tough trading environment, but the scale and ferocity of the disruption we saw in August was a real body blow.”
Williams added: “However, while August’s figures are undeniably bleak, we are comparing last month’s sales against a strong August in 2010. We don’t expect the pressure on consumer confidence to ease – or the cash they have in their pockets to increase – so we’re not expecting the sort of ‘keep calm and carry on’ sales uplift that we might see if the economy was in better health.”
Retailers should bear in mind the British consumer has consistently shown itself to be a resilient creature, and shoppers should start to return to retailers who give them great products, prices and service.
“That said,” continued Williams, “volumes will remain subdued over the next couple of months, although the overall level of spend should hold.”
The strength of non-store sales (up 40.2% year-on-year) should also give retailers with a multi-channel offering some comfort and further incentive to invest in this area of their business.
Detail underpinning flat performance
According to the BRC, food sales growth was similar to that in July. Non-food sales fell further below their year-earlier level, with footwear and homeware showing the largest declines despite further promotions. ‘Big ticket’ purchases were still often deal-driven, hit by fragile consumer confidence and the weak housing market.
Non-food non-store (Internet, mail-order and phone) sales growth picked up to the best level since April. Sales were 12.6% higher than a year ago after a relatively weak 9.6% in July, but 17.8% in August 2010.
Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, explained: “The retail sector’s performance for August has been essentially flat, particularly bearing in mind the increase in VAT which will be responsible for some of the growth in spending. It remains a tale of two halves. The food sector has proven more resilient but non-food retail showed a marked decrease in sales year-on-year.”
Focusing on the recent civil disorder, Robertson stated: “The riots were not widespread or prolonged enough to have a significant impact on these UK-wide figures. Poor consumer confidence, high inflation and the ongoing squeeze on personal finances remain the biggest threats to the retail sector. Sales of big ticket items are very dependent on discounting and many retailers’ margins are being cut to the bone.”
Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG, said: “The weaker sectors are really struggling. For non-food, the picture is disheartening with one of the worst monthly results of the year thus far.”
Dickinson continued: “The differential between food and non-food performance continues to grow, with food sales in value terms remaining relatively resilient. Given that much, if not all, of the growth is inflation and a higher VAT rate versus last year, this isn’t particularly good news for retailers as they struggle to maintain their margins.”
The KPMG specialist said promotional activity remains high to drive footfall and interest which is “a delicate balancing act” for retailers to ensure the volume uplift compensates for the margin losses.
