Met’s CCTV reporting platform quadruples shoplifting charge rate

A reporting platform that lets retailers send CCTV footage and witness statements directly to police has quadrupled the proportion of London shoplifting cases ending in a caution, charge or other criminal disposal, the Metropolitan Police said on 4 August, as the force extended the scheme to eight more boroughs.

Where shoplifting was reported through the platform in the six boroughs piloting it, 29.4 per cent of cases resulted in a criminal disposal, according to figures released by the Met. The force’s average before the technology was introduced was 7.3 per cent.

The platform allows retailers to submit CCTV footage, witness statements and other evidence to officers moments after a crime is committed. At present, the Met said, officers can wait 28 days or longer for that material.

The force ran the six-month pilot with major retailers including Tesco, Boots, Greggs and M&S in Bexley, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Lewisham, and Westminster.

It has now been extended to subscribing retailers in Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Lambeth, Southwark and Sutton, with more boroughs to follow in the coming months, the Met said.

Cdr Andy Featherstone said the key to solving shoplifting was evidence that showed the identity of the offender, together with a statement from the company and a record of the items stolen.

“Something that may have taken months and months in the past, and sometimes evidence lost along that process, is now able to move in a matter of hours to bring in offenders to justice,” he said.

The Met said reported shoplifting offences across London fell by 3.7 per cent in the last financial year, around 3,500 fewer offences, while arrests for retail crime rose by almost 50 per cent and the number of positive outcomes more than doubled, from 2,682 to 5,996.

The force has previously recorded more shoplifting offences than any other in the UK, logging over 215,000 between 2019 and 2024, according to police data reported when shoplifting offences reached a record high across England and Wales.

The platform is the Met’s latest use of technology against retail crime. In 2023 the force began using facial recognition to match CCTV stills of prolific shoplifting suspects against custody images, while retailers themselves have introduced measures including body-worn cameras for shop staff.

The British Independent Retail Association welcomed the technology but said smaller shops, which also experience shoplifting, needed help too.

Andrew Goodacre, the association’s chief executive, said the technology was “largely good news”.

“There’s that bit of challenge for independent retailers who don’t have the technology and the resources to maybe deal with this crime in a way that a large Tesco might do,” he said.