Just 270 people linked to over 28,000 shoplifting offences across England

A man in Hastings once walked out of shops with £400 to £500 worth of stolen goods every single day. Jeff Ashman, now in recovery, describes the scale of his own offending as almost incomprehensible—a daily cycle of theft driven by addiction to heroin and crack cocaine. He knows the damage he caused. But across England, hundreds of people like him continue to move through shops, pockets filling, with little consequence.

A BBC analysis of police data from 27 forces across England has mapped the shape of this problem with unusual precision. Between 2020 and 2026, just 270 people were linked to 28,415 recorded shoplifting offences. That works out to an average of 105 crimes per person—and these are only the thefts that were formally reported and where police identified a suspect. One offender in Sussex alone had been linked to 247 shoplifting offences, roughly one reported crime every 10 days. The concentration is stark: a tiny fraction of offenders account for an enormous volume of retail theft.

The broader picture is one of overwhelmed police resources. Across England and Wales, forces recorded 502,011 shoplifting offences in 2025-26 alone. More than half of those investigations closed with no suspect identified at all. Of the cases that did proceed, only about one in five led to a charge or summons. That means roughly 286,000 reported crimes went nowhere—no arrest, no prosecution, no visible consequence. For retailers and their staff, the message felt clear: shoplifting was becoming a cost of doing business, not a crime with teeth.

The human toll on retail workers has become impossible to ignore. At a shop in Canterbury, a manager named Laurissa Woolgar described staff being wrestled with as they tried to recover stolen items, facing constant verbal abuse and threats. John Bownas, who leads a team supporting shops in Hastings, spoke of young workers on minimum wage confronted daily by what he called "really quite violent characters"—threats of needles, threats of knives. The government responded by making assault on a retail worker a specific criminal offence under the Crime and Policing Act 2026, carrying up to six months in prison and unlimited fines. But new laws mean little if offenders are not caught.

Some retailers have begun doing police work themselves. Dion Smith runs a jewelry workshop in Leeds that was hit for £1,000 in gold last year. His wife photographed shoplifters selling the stolen merchandise at a second-hand goods store, but police could not identify them. Only when Smith posted the images on social media did the community respond with names and addresses. He described the situation bluntly: shoplifting has "got out of control" in the past five to 10 years, and without real consequences, offenders are "running amok."

Criminology professor Emmeline Taylor points to a second layer of the problem: organised crime. Post-pandemic, what she calls a "shoplifting epidemic" has included criminal networks stealing specific high-value items, clearing entire shelves, and moving goods through online markets or car boot sales. The Opal unit, a specialist police team focused on organised retail crime, has uncovered crime groups responsible for millions of pounds in theft spanning 30 different police force areas. These are not desperate addicts grabbing what they need; they are businesses operating with coordination and scale.

Responses are beginning to take shape. The National Police Chiefs' Council launched a strategy last year that brings together policing, retailers, and government. Hertfordshire Constabulary is using a new platform called Auror that allows retailers to report directly to police and has already led to arrests of shoplifters linked to dozens of thefts across the country. Staffordshire runs a scheme called Partnerships Against Business Crime that shares intelligence on known offenders with registered retailers. These tools represent a shift toward coordination—the recognition that no single actor, police or retailer, can solve this alone.

Policing minister Sarah Jones acknowledged that shoplifting has "gone unpunished" for too long and said offenders "need to know that they are going to be punished." The government is exploring additional measures beyond prison and drug treatment: technology, court orders barring offenders from specific shops or areas. Yet even as officials point to a slight year-on-year drop in recorded shoplifting crimes as evidence the country has "turned that corner," they admit there is far more work to do. The 270 people linked to 28,000 crimes remain a reminder that the corner may not be turned at all—only that the problem is finally being counted.