Share more CCTV to help tackle shoplifting - Met

Retailers should share more CCTV and evidence to help officers target shoplifters, the deputy head of the Metropolitan Police has said.

The plea comes as more than 90,000 offences were reported in the year ending March 2026, a slight fall of 3.7% compared to the previous year.

According to the Met, retailers only provided CCTV evidence in 20% of cases reported, which meant most investigations were closed.

Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes said the force was "really determined" there would be "consequences" for prolific or violent offenders and had made nearly 50% more arrests in the last year.

Recorded shoplifting offences have more than doubled in London in the last four years, and some retail bosses have called for more to be done, with staff facing brazen and sometimes aggressive offenders.

BBC London has previously spoken to retailers who said they had "given up" calling police as they did not believe they took shoplifting seriously.

Sarah King from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said it "always encouraged" retailers to report the crime, but that some did not have time to do so, and others told them "nothing really happens" when they did.

"They might be issued with a crime reference number, which is great, but what then doesn't happen is they don't see what then follows up."

She called for the Met Police to provide "some sort of tracking tool" which would give retailers "a sense of confidence" that it was being taken seriously.

Lucy Whing, the crime policy lead at the British Retail Consortium, said retailers had reported a slight improved response from officers, and everyone was "working much better together."

However, she added that "trust has been eroded over time" and that there was still "a long way to go" to rebuild it.

Amjad Khan, who runs a small store on Lewisham High Street, said he felt police were doing their best but seemed to lack the powers to prevent shoplifting.

"Crime happens in a second," he said, adding that he has witnessed the nearby Greggs bakery being targeted "between 20 to 30 times a day."

He said that the shoplifting gave a sense of lawlessness in the capital.

"The world is watching what's going on in London, and London is not safe. Everyone is saying, 'don't go there'."

Recorded shoplifting offences have soared from 3,202 in April 2022 to 7,865 in March 2026, according to data on the Met's website.

Around one in nine of the 916,176 offences recorded in the year ending March 2026 resulted in a "positive outcome" such as a charge or other sanction.

Earlier this month, Marks and Spencer retail director Thinus Keeve called for more to be done, saying that retail crime was "becoming more brazen, more organised and more aggressive."

The executive chairman of Iceland, Lord Walker of Broxton, previously suggested that security guards in shops should carry pepper spray and truncheons.

Asked for his views on Lord Walker's comments, Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes said: "What we really want to do is see great information flow from the stores, really high quality CCTV, really high quality statements."

He added that it was "clearly a question for employers in terms of how they set the boundaries" for security staff.

Chief Inspector Rav Pathania, the Met's lead for tackling retail crime, said that officers had previously been "focused" on cutting violent offences rather than on retail crime.

He said the Met had not investigated 80% of reported offences last year because retailers had not provided CCTV when requested.

Officers in Lewisham, in south-east London, have been trialling a new privately operated online platform since January, called Auror, where retailers upload CCTV and witness statements.

The Met said it had led to more cases being solved and would now be rolled out more widely in London.

"We are now joining the dots between individuals who are travelling between London's boroughs, travelling around the country and committing offences," Jukes said.

He gave an example of how one offender, instead of being investigated for a single £50 theft, has been linked to more than £3000 worth of offences and received a jail sentence.

Pathania said the platform used AI and retrospective facial recognition, and there had been "no issues" so far regarding any of the evidence coming before the courts.

However, he added that it did not allow retailers to report violence or harm to police, and that there was a cost involved in using the platform.

Auror has told BBC London that its prices vary depending on the services required.

Some retailers have already been using facial recognition technology to try to tackle shoplifting, although critics have raised concerns about privacy.

King said the online platform was "a great idea" but that solutions must be affordable to everyone as many retailers operated with "tight margins".

"Small businesses on the high street do struggle to keep ahead with the various sort of security measures, the technology measures, because they all are at a cost of a small business. So, for example, surveillance costs money, training staff costs money."

"Generally, it does seem that it's more suited to larger retailers," said Whing.

"It's really important to make sure that smaller businesses aren't kind of forgotten about, and that there's other things in place to make sure that they're included as well, and it's easy for them to report."

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