By Aleem Farooqi

CORNER stores can’t usually afford security guards and at some times in the day they may be the only person in the shop. Moreover retailers sometimes live with their families above the shop. It means there’s a particular resonance if a thief says: “I know where you live.”

Hopes are pinned on the Protection of Workers law which marks its first anniversary today (August 24). Under this law it is a specific offence to assault, threaten or abuse a retail worker with penalties ranging from a fine to a prison sentence. Will it make a difference? Do police and the wider public realise what it is like to be at the centre of retail crime?

Fellow retailers who have caught shoplifters have been called “P*** bastards/bitches” “Black bastards” and invited to “Have a bath, ya black bastards”.

We have been followed to our cars late at night, threatened with being stabbed and our shops burned down.

We ask for the law to protect us not least because the flashpoint for abuse and violence is often our enforcement of the laws on shoplifting and sales of alcohol and cigarettes.

Many don’t seem to think shoplifting is a big deal but in total it is. Police Scotland figures indicate shoplifting crimes rose 12 per to almost 23,000 incidents in the year to March (2022).

You stress over the theft that you witness but the covert shoplifting may be more significant as retailers struggle to deal with soaring costs and struggle to avoid becoming one more closed shop on their street.

Figures from the Scottish Retail Consortium indicate that one in six shops lies empty. I know this only too well as my organisation, the Federation of Independent Retailers (The Fed, also known as NFRN), represents small shopkeepers facing huge challenges in towns and villages across Scotland. They are often the backbone of their communities and missed if they disappear.

At the height of the pandemic a couple came into my shop, picked up a few items and said they were taking them as they had no money. Maybe they were genuinely on the breadline but I was fearful that at the very least I would be spat at. I let them leave. What goes through your head is the potential more serious cost of confrontation. You sometimes have to accept that your safety is more important than the financial loss.

The criminals suspect the chances of being caught are small and even if they are identified and the case goes to court, months later they may receive a community service order.

To my mind the stretched non-emergency police number 101 offers a poor service in response to shoplifting. Sometimes you just give up. I’m glad to say the police response is usually quick if we make a 999 call because of a physical threat or violence.

I am grateful for the new law instigated by Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, a former retailer. I would like to hope that one day it makes a real impact on the stress, fear and financial impact of retail crime.

Aleem Farooqi is Scottish President of the Federation of Independent Retailers