Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Justice to detail any steps she is taking to better protect retail workers from retail crime.
Minister of Justice: Business and retail crime has a real impact on local businesses, staff, individual consumers and the wider community, and a partnership approach is central to preventing and addressing retail crime.
My Sentencing Bill includes a new offence of assaulting a public worker which will carry a higher maximum penalty than that currently available for the offence of common assault in the magistrates’ courts. In addition, the Bill makes the fact that the victim is a public worker an aggravating factor in a range of more serious offences. This new offence and statutory aggravator will apply to retail workers and are intended to make clear that such assaults are not acceptable and will be dealt with robustly.
My Department is a member of the Business Crime Partnership (BCP). The BCP, chaired by the PSNI, consists of representatives from the Department of Justice, Northern Ireland Policing Board, Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, Federation of Small Businesses, Retail NI, Belfast City Centre Management, Trading Standards and Policing and Community Safety Partnerships (PCSPs). The BCP is a networking, information sharing and engagement forum, set up to share best practice and crime prevention advice to support businesses.
Additionally, my Department, alongside the Northern Ireland Policing Board provides £4.25m annual operational funding to PCSPs to identify and help address local community safety issues, including the issue of business and retail crime. PCSPs address the issue of business crime via a number of initiatives including on-street projects such as Community Safety Warden schemes, radio link and text alert schemes as well as the Business Watch scheme which provides crime prevention advice.
ENDS
Your MLA 