Tesco workers to be offered body cameras after huge rise in violent attacks on staff

Supermarket workers are being offered body cameras after violent attacks on staff members have increased by a third. Tesco’s CEO, Ken Murphy has said physical assaults at the retail giant have risen dramatically since 2022, and now he calls for stricter laws for the perpetrators.

Recent changes in the law have made attacking a shop employee an “aggravating factor” in convictions, but Murphy wants the “abuse or violence towards retail workers” to become an offence too.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, the supermarket boss said: “Crime is a scourge on society, and an insult to shoppers and retail workers. It is time we put an end to it.”

Tesco is now rolling out body-worn cameras to prevent offenders from attacking Tesco workers. Murphy also said Tesco had also invested £44m in security including door access systems, protection screens and digital radios over the last four years.

However, Murphy has urged for change in how shop crime is dealt with by the authorities, and wants businesses to be more informed on how cases are proceeding when someone is charged for committing a crime in store.

He said being informed would help retailers to “spot patterns and provide reassurance that justice is being done.”

“We’ll only be able to stop these thugs if we work together,” he wrote in the newspaper.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed abuse against retail workers had nearly doubled that of pre-Covid levels this year. Meanwhile, Co-op already introduced the bodycam technology back in 2020.