'Staff spat at and wrestled' during shop abuse
BBCLaurissa Woolgar, a retail manager, says she has been spat at and has witnessed colleagues being physically attacked by shoplifters.
"We've been sworn at, there's a lot of verbal abuse," she says. "My colleagues have been wrestled with as they've tried to get items off them."
The Retail Trust charity is now rolling out a safety training programme after a survey by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) found 11% of staff said they had been assaulted at work last year.
The government says no one should go to work fearing for their safety and it is making it a specific criminal offence to assault a retail worker.
Usdaw says staff have reported being assaulted, threatened with knives, spat at and having tins of food thrown at them.
Woolgar, who works in Canterbury in Kent, said some shoplifters can be very challenging to deal with.
"It's really upsetting and it just makes you not trust quite a lot of people you would normally trust, and it's really difficult, you just don't need the abuse," she said.
Usdaw has written a letter to the Home Secretary, co-signed by a number of major retailers, calling on the government to enact the new law to give workers more protection.
Gillian Paterson, an Usdaw union rep from Sussex, says: "No one should feel afraid to go to work.
"People are beginning to not enjoy coming into work. They're asking 'is today the day I'm going to be abused or assaulted?'."
She says: "There's a security guard who knows the faces of the regular [shoplifters] and he was threatened with a knife, so much so that the company had to put him on gardening leave to deter the threat.
"We just hope this new law will hopefully reduce the amount of offending, and the amount of abuse staff get."
Retail security worker Cory (not his real name) from Oxfordshire says: "I've been pushed, I've been swung at.
"Even though they might be 14 or 15 years old, they will try and look down on you and speak to you like you're not a human being."
He says the abuse and harassment can impact staff members' mental health.
"Some days it does get the better of me," he says.
Research by the Retail Trust found 41% of the workforce surveyed were at risk of quitting last year, due to unhappiness around issues like abuse in shops.
"There are examples of staff being hit in the face with shopping baskets and requiring dental surgery," the trust's director, Mike Chiswell says.
The charity has been rolling out staff safety training across the country to reduce cases of shop staff abuse.
"We're feeling we need to train these individuals so they're more confident and equipped with having the right tools and techniques to de-escalate these situations," Chiswell said.
"We would never encourage anybody to confront anybody who is shoplifting in store."
Cory is one of thousands of staff who have now had the trust's safety and de-escalation training designed to protect staff.
Jail and unlimited fines
The Crime and Policing Act 2026 has created a criminal offence of assaulting a retail worker in England and Wales.
Those found guilty can be sent to prison for up to six months, and face an unlimited fine.
The Retail Trust says it hopes its safety training and the new law once implemented will encourage more staff to report abuse.
"We hear that sometimes one in four people are failing to actually report these incidents because of previous situations where they haven't felt it's been dealt with, or handled or taken seriously." Chiswell says.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "For too long, retail crime has been dismissed as low-level offending.
"It harms shopworkers, damages businesses, and hollows out communities.
"Shop theft is down 4% on last year and charges are up 19%."
