Shoplifting on rise in areas including Bury St Edmunds, but Suffolk Police figures lower than pre-Covid

The number of shoplifting offences reported to Suffolk police is rising following a lull during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, while nationally there may be talk of a ‘shoplifting epidemic’, the Suffolk figure for 2022 is still lower than pre-pandemic levels in the county.

Data obtained by SuffolkNews using the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act reveals 3110 shoplifting offences were recorded by Suffolk Constabulary in 2022 (the last full year of data), compared to 2396 in 2021.

However non-essential shops were closed and there were restrictions on being out and about during the first part of 2021 due to the third national coronavirus lockdown.

Figures for Bury St Edmunds show a 55.1 per cent increase in reports from 2021 to 2022, while for Stowmarket it was 150 per cent, for Ipswich it was 45.3 per cent and for Sudbury it was 49 per cent. Newmarket saw a drop in reports over this period.

The number of shoplifting offences recorded for Suffolk this year so far, up to the end of September, is 2702.

Last month, Bury business owner Suzanne Cooper, of the Parsley Pot in Abbeygate Street, spoke of an increase in people attempting to shoplift and said she takes it ‘personally’ every time her town centre shop is targeted.

Chief Inspector Andy Pursehouse, of Suffolk Police, said shoplifting offences reported in the county were on the increase, which the police were always anticipating, following a lull over the pandemic, but the level was still below what they saw pre-Covid.

He said: “Any crime is one crime too many and we want to keep an eye on it and support the shopkeepers.

“We understand the impact this has and we want to work with our partners, the town councils, BIDs (Business Improvement Districts) and the retailers, and support them in tackling this problem.

“We are always open to people who want more information. There is loads on our website.”

He said there were practical steps partners could take in terms of security.

“We understand the impact it [shoplifting] has on small businesses and are concerned about any rise in crime,” added the chief inspector.

For Bury, the 433 figure for 2022 is higher than the pre-pandemic years of 2017 and 2018, but lower than the 469 in 2019.

“It is on the rise and I think Bury is a victim of its success in many ways; there’s been such an increase in footfall and they have worked very hard to get shoppers back,” said the chief inspector.

He said there were multiple reasons why shoplifting, in general, was rising, such as the increase in footfall in town centres and the cost-of-living crisis, and the crime is also connected to drug use, and is also perpetrated by organised gangs who are travelling around the country.

He said these gangs target high-value goods like alcohol and Suffolk Police works with other forces to target these people.

“It is not a massive epidemic of them, but organised crime does happen in Bury and other areas and we work hard to identify those individuals, those gangs who are organising it and work very closely with neighbouring forces and partners to tackle that,” said Chief Insp Pursehouse.

In terms of how Suffolk Police is working on the problem of shoplifting, he said it was a focus for the Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

“Bury is lucky it has got funded PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) and they are dedicated to that town centre and, again, we do value high-visibility patrolling. It is important we are out there around the town centres as much as we can.”

He said figures for Suffolk were in line with national trends, and the county was faring better than a lot of the big metropolitan force areas.

He added that shoplifting was an underreported crime and a lot of national stores have their own policies and procedures of how they deal with it, ‘and some of that doesn’t always come the way of the police’.

He added: “We obviously do encourage people to report it to us. We record it and investigate to the best our ability.”

He said they have had some success and prosecute where they can.

Figures obtained from the same FOI request, show there were 1152 positive outcomes – which includes arrests, cautions and community resolutions - for all shoplifting offences reported to Suffolk Police in 2022.