Rishi Sunak: man steals wine metres from Prime Minister giving speech about crackdown on shoplifting

A man was caught stealing wine during an event by Rishi Sunak announcing a fresh crackdown on retail crime and shoplifting.

The Prime Minister was in Horsham, West Sussex, to announce new legislation which makes assault on retail workers a standalone offence. Sunak met with Horsham MP Jeremy Quin, Sussex Police Crime and Commissioner Katy Bourne and Chief Constable Jo Shiner, as well as discussing the measures with Boots staff.

Sunak said that the new law sends “a clear message” that there will be “tough consequences for this unacceptable behaviour”. Yet as the event was going on, NationalWorld’s sister site SussexWorld revealed that police were forced to detain a shoplifter stealing three bottles of wine.

Alex Norris, Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, told NationalWorld: “Never has there been a more visible sign of this Tory government’s utter failure and impotence than for a shoplifting incident to take place while Rishi Sunak is making an announcement about how ‘tough’ he is on shoplifting. The Tories just can’t get anything right and the country is suffering. It’s time for change and a general election.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Sussex Police said: “A shoplifting incident at Tesco Express in Horsham town centre was reported to police around 9.40am on Wednesday (April 10).

"The suspect, who is known locally to officers, was reported to have stolen three bottles of wine. An officer engaged with staff at the store and the suspect was detained in the vicinity shortly afterwards.

“The alcohol was seized and returned to the store in a sellable condition, and staff confirmed they were satisfied with this and that they did not wish to pursue further action. The suspect was directed to leave the area and will be dealt with by way of a Community Protection Warning.”

Whilst this was happening, Sunak was speaking to reporters in the Boots store about how an area of “increasing concern” in the retail climate is shoplifting. "People would have seen it happens on social media, it's absolutely not acceptable,” he said. “It's particularly not right that our shop workers are having to deal with it.

“And I understand this acutely having grown up working in my mum's small pharmacy shop in Southampton. Today we outlined a range of measures to help us clamp down on retail crime, including a new offence for assaulting a retail shop worker.

This has been welcomed but also greater use of electronic tagging and monitoring of prolific offenders and then lastly the use of facial recognition technology and CCTV to catch and apprehend people.”

Figures in January showed that the shoplifting rate in England and Wales is at its highest level in more than two decades, after rising by nearly a third in the last year. No10 has been contacted for comment.

Ralph Blackburn is NationalWorld’s politics editor based in Westminster, where he gets special access to Parliament, MPs and government briefings. If you liked this article you can follow Ralph on X (Twitter) here and sign up to his free weekly newsletter Politics Uncovered, which brings you the latest analysis and gossip from Westminster every Sunday morning.