Worker threatened with weapons by shoplifters

Shop worker Kieran Essex says he faced violence on several occasions

A convenience store worker has described being threatened with weapons when challenging shoplifters as incidents increase across a county.

"I've been threatened with knives, with hockey sticks, every day you're seeing something get worse," said Kieran Essex, 27, who works in a shop in Peterborough.

Figures from Cambridgeshire Police show reports of shoplifting have more than doubled over the past five years and Mr Essex said it was a "pandemic".

Darryl Preston, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said work was taking place to tackle the issue.

Mr Essex has been working in retail for nine years and said there were now "countless" amounts of shoplifters.

He said he has experienced "physical contact" with offenders on numerous occasions.

"I have had to tackle people at the door, have pursued them outside and have even had people drive off with me inside their car window."

He said recently the shop was targeted by shoplifters over four days in a ten-day period.

"Everyone is just trying to survive," Mr Essex said.

In 2020 3,006 shoplifting incidents were recorded by Cambridgeshire Police across the county, this figure rose to 3,161 in 2021, 4,331 in 2022, 6,046 in 2023 and 7,352 in 2024.

Shop owner Vidyut Soni says the effect of shoplifting on businesses is sad

Vidyut Soni, the owner of Premier City News in Peterborough, has been looking for ways to tackle the problem.

"It's brazen, not blasé, but brazen. Everything that we sell we have to account for.

"We need to find ways to actually make it better, or otherwise it can potentially ruin the whole business.

"Trade is not easy. Things are very tight in the economy and we don't make much money anyway."

Pep Cipriano from Peterborough Positive says the more police coming onto the streets in Peterborough is "fabulous news"

Pep Cipriano, the chief executive officer of Peterborough Positive, a business improvement area organisation, said the city was not alone in having rising rates of shoplifting.

"Shoplifting in Peterborough, like most towns and cities, is on the increase.

"We work really closely with the police to try and combat it and we've just got the recent announcement about new police officers coming to the city centre... which means on a daily basis we'll see more police on the street."

Peterborough Positive promote the shop radio scheme so retailers can communicate with each other about shoplifters operating in the area

Preston said: "There are ongoing operations taking place to deal with these issues in a concerted way – an example of which would be the 1,600 shoplifting charges brought by [Cambridgeshire Police's] south spree offending team since its creation in September 2023.

"I continue to fund problem-solving posts in each of our county's community safety partnerships who are working with the police and other partners to tackle shoplifting.

"The sharing of local intelligence through schemes such as Shop Watch and the provision of Safer Business packs are both helping to support retailers in preventing, responding and recovering from incidents."

"We are not losing the fight against shoplifting," says Det Ch Insp Christian O'Brien

Det Ch Insp Christian O'Brien, from Cambridgeshire Police, said: "We are doing everything we can, working with the business community and with the courts.

"We're... trying to put in place criminal orders to try and prevent the people from committing the offences.

"We also work with partner agencies to help the people committing these crimes, because a lot is fuelled by different addictions."