Retail workers call for more security after Waitrose sacking for tackling shoplifter
Retail workers have called for more security guards in stores after a Waitrose worker was sacked for confronting a shoplifter.Waitrose has been criticised over its treatment of Walker Smith after the Guardian reported he was fired two days after he stopped a shoplifter taking items from an Easter egg display, including Lindt chocolate bunnies.Joanne Thomas, the general secretary of Usdaw, the shop workers’ union, said: “Usdaw supports a physical security presence in stores and we have ongoing conversations with employers about protection for retail workers on the frontline of the rise in retail crime.“The results of our 2025 annual survey show that 59% of members would welcome more security in stores because security guards provide reassurance, act as a deterrent and have specialist experience to deal with incidents.“While not as popular as a physical security presence, members also value other security measures such as improved CCTV, facial recognition technology, body-worn cameras and headsets that help to identify perpetrators, record incidents and link workers to a central control for support.
”Smith was offered a job at Iceland after Waitrose doubled down on sacking him.Richard Walker, Iceland’s chief executive, said shop workers needed more tools including AI and potentially batons to deter thieves.He told Good Morning Britain on Wednesday: “We should call [shoplifting] out for what it is, which in many cases is often violent crime.It’s as simple and base as that.And therefore, that’s why I think we should be doing more, much more, to keep our customers and our colleagues safe.
”Walker said it was proving difficult to use facial recognition to stop thieves,“We do have AI technology that can spot shoplifters, that we are using in our store but that some people, including the Information Commissioner’s Office, have a big problem with because of the human rights of the shoplifters, which clearly is absurd,”He added: “When you go on holiday in Spain, you’ll have seen it yourself,The in-store security teams there do have pepper spray and batons,Now, my point wasn’t that we need to arm store colleagues, of course, but it was that our in-store security staff … should be given, within reason, as much powers as they can to bring back the stigma to this horrible crime.
”In February a security guard in Milton Keynes was fatally stabbed while at work,Security workers have been calling for shops to allow them to wear stab-proof vests while on shift,Daniel Garnham, the general secretary of the Security Industry Federation (SIF), said: “We have been working for years to get correct PPE like stab-proof vests or body-worn cameras but the security companies hide behind their client, a retailer, and say they don’t want them because it doesn’t look nice for customers when there is security wearing a body-worn camera or stab-proof vests,”He said security guards were “ridiculed on TikTok” because supermarket policies did not allow them to physically stop thieves,Instead, he said, “the policies put in place by the companies say they are supposed to have a hands-off approach”.
Garnham said assaults on workers were getting worse and “becoming an everyday occurrence”,The SIF has started a petition to make assaulting a security worker a standalone offence, as it is for emergency services workers, to deter the spate of assaults,Waitrose said in a statement: “There is a serious danger to life in tackling shoplifters,We refuse to put anyone’s life at risk and that’s why we have policies in place that are very clearly understood and must be strictly followed,“As a responsible employer, we never want to be in a position where we are notifying families of a tragedy because someone tried to stop a theft.
Nothing we sell is worth risking lives for.”It added: “The reporting on this does not cover the full facts of the situation.While we would never be able to discuss an individual case, we can assure you the correct process is being followed, which includes a standard appeals procedure.”Lucy Whing, the crime policy lead at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Colleagues safety is of the upmost importance to retailers.They have invested £5bn over the past five years on crime prevention measures such as increased security personnel, body-worn cameras, ant-theft devices and more.
”Shopworkers have for some years been campaigning on safety in store, and last year Co-op workers complained they were being asked to staff shops on their own despite a surge in thefts.They said they felt their safety and security was at risk.Co-op said at the time that more than 90% of the overall hours worked by its staff were not one-on-one and its stores were set up so workers would not be left alone during deliveries and at busier times of day, such as opening and closing times.
Landlords evicting tenants before law to prevent practice comes into force in England
Increasing numbers of landlords are evicting tenants at the last minute before the law changes to outlaw the practice in next month, charities have said.The renters’ union Acorn told the Guardian that no-fault evictions made up one in five of the reports they received from members in October, rising to nearly one in three by January.The Renters’ Rights Act, which was in development last year and will come into effect on 1 May 2026, will abolish section 21 of the existing Housing Act, which allows landlord to evict without providing a justification to the court.“This isn’t a coincidence. Landlords are clearly rushing to force through last-minute evictions before the ban comes into force
Treat jailed drug dealers like radical extremists, says prisons watchdog
Jailed criminals who are flooding prisons with drugs should be isolated like radical extremists and “assertively managed”, the England and Wales prisons watchdog has said.Charlie Taylor, HM inspector of prisons, said major dealers were living “consequence-free” in jail when they should be separated from the majority of inmates, subjected to regular searches for phones, and punished and rewarded according to their behaviour.Taylor’s demands for a radical rethink follow concerns from MPs about how to break a cycle of violence and chaos caused by the large-scale importation of drugs into “long-term high-risk” prisons, which hold England and Wales’s most dangerous inmates.In an interview with the Guardian, Taylor said: “Some serious organised crime gang members are coming into prison and their feet just don’t touch the ground.“They’re running operations and making a lot of money almost from the moment they get into the jail
World held hostage by reliance on fossil fuels, Christiana Figueres warns – and climate health impacts are ‘mother of all injustices’
Countries are being “held hostage” by their reliance on fossil fuels, a former UN climate chief has warned, describing the health impacts of climate change as “the mother of all injustices”.Christiana Figueres, an international climate negotiator who helped deliver the Paris agreement signed in 2016, made the comments as she was announced on Wednesday as co-chair of a Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality.Lancet Commissions are international collaborations that analyse major global health issues and influence policy. This commission will examine legal frameworks to hold countries accountable for the health harms of sea-level rise. It will report by September 2027
Early treatment is key to children recovering from eating disorders
Your article on 45% of primary teachers encountering eating disorders in primary schools should alarm policymakers, but it will not surprise those of us working in clinical and rehabilitation services (Almost half of primary teachers in England see pupils with eating disorders, survey finds, 31 March).Children are presenting signs of eating disorders at younger ages, and by the time they reach specialist care their conditions are often more complex and entrenched. This earlier onset reflects a combination of pressures, from social media amplifying body image concerns to unmet emotional needs in children still recovering from the pandemic, and also a system that remains too slow to respond.Teachers are increasingly the first to spot the signs. Yet they are not clinicians, and many feel ill-equipped to act
Judith Rapoport obituary
The child psychiatrist Judith Rapoport, who has died aged 92, is credited with bringing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to public awareness. Her book The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing (1989), which was translated into more than 20 languages and written in jargon-free style for a non-medical readership, was based on her groundbreaking research into the condition.People with OCD can feel their lives are upended by the feeling that they must constantly retie shoelaces, check light switches are turned off or doors are locked. Others describe the “torture” of having to perform rituals before leaving home or having to constantly wash their hands.Until the book was published, most people with OCD were unaware that others suffered similarly, and many were so embarrassed by their behaviour that they hid it from family and friends
Resident doctors’ strike has torpedoed pay rises and training posts, says Wes Streeting
Wes Streeting has accused resident doctors of “torpedoing” their own pay rises and training jobs by walking out on strike again, as tens of thousands of doctors began a six-day stoppage in England.The health secretary said there was a “legitimacy” to concerns over jobs and wages but that the British Medical Association had scuppered any chance of a breakthrough when it rejected what he said was a serious offer from the government to transform medics’ conditions.Resident doctors began their longest strike yet at 7am on Tuesday after talks to end the long-running dispute collapsed. Walking out for a fourth year in a row, this is the 15th time they have staged industrial action since March 2023 in their campaign for “full pay restoration”.NHS officials told the Guardian the strike would cost the health service an estimated £300m, lead to appointments being cancelled, and would force patients to wait longer for tests, treatment and surgery
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