Three Iceland staff are HIV positive after being attacked by shoplifters with hypodermic needles, the chain’s boss has told MailOnline. 

Richard Walker, executive chairman of Iceland Foods, is the latest retail leader to speak out about the increase in violent attacks on staff working at high street stores. 

‘Every single week I receive an average of 12 reports of ”serious incidents” where managers and other colleagues have been attacked in our stores, almost always by shoplifters,’ he told MailOnline.

‘Colleagues are being slapped, punched and threatened with a range of weapons including knives, hammers, firearms and hypodermic needles.

‘Three of our store colleagues are now HIV positive as a result of needle attacks several years ago. Other assaults have resulted in injuries ranging from a broken jaw to a fractured skull.’ 

The idea of victims being infected with HIV after being attacked with infected needles has long been a dark urban myth, but Mr Walker’s comments show this has now become a reality. 

Staff at other chains have been punched, bottled and stabbed by thieves – who store security experts say are increasingly operating in organised criminal gangs. 

Co-op employees have also been threatened with syringes, while another was assaulted with a medieval mace, a senior executive told MailOnline. 

And John Lewis chairman Sharon White recently described shoplifting in Britain as an ‘epidemic’. Today, MailOnline can reveal exclusive CCTV video taken inside the chain’s stores showing shoplifting.

As part of an investigation into the UK’s shoplifting ‘epidemic’, MailOnline has obtained exclusive CCTV footage of shoplifters in John Lewis. In one video, a man wearing a black jumper crouches down and opens a black bin bag before stashing two Pure speakers inside

In another video a man walks off with products in his hand, before turning around again and exposing his face to the CCTV camera. In both cases the shoplifters were detained before being arrested by police

Richard Walker, executive chairman of Iceland Foods, is the latest retail executive to speak out about the increase in violent attacks on staff across the UK high street 

An Iceland security guard confronts a shoplifter inside a store in Ilford, London. None of the images in this article show people involved in needle attacks or any victims of them

MailOnline can also reveal data that shows cases of shoplifting at Co-op stores have risen by 41 per cent in the first eight months of this year compared to the last. 

Paul Gerrard, the chain’s campaigns and public affairs director, said the number of cases of violence being used against staff had also increased by 25 per cent. 

‘We are running at about a thousand incidents of shoplifting a day across our two and a half thousand stores,’ he told MailOnline.  

The British Retail Consortium said incidents of violence and abuse against staff have nearly doubled from more than 450 per day in 2019/2020 to more than 850 last year.

In the CCTV footage of John Lewis shoplifters, published by MailOnline today, one man wearing a black jumper crouches down and opens a black bin bag before stashing two Pure speakers inside. 

He looks up to a higher shelf and appears to select the most expensive item he can find – a Pure radio worth £369. 

He then grabs the price sticker for the radio and stashes it in his bin bag along with the other stolen goods and begins walking out. 

In a second video, a man walks up to a pile of yellow tops and grabs them.

He walks off with them in his hand, before turning around again and exposing his face to the CCTV camera.

Finally, he leans over and stuffs them in his bag. 

In both cases the shoplifters were detained by security staff before being arrested by police. 

Mr Walker revealed that the chain is losing £20million a year through shoplifting as he called for more powers to tackle criminals. 

He said security guards should be given the power to search suspects – which they currently can only do with their consent. 

He also complained that data protection laws had stopped his employees from sharing photos of shoplifters with nearby stores or post their faces on notice boards.

‘We’ve had a run in in the past with the Information Commissioner’s Office because sharing photos of known shoplifters with other stores on the high street via WhatsApp groups apparently breaches their human rights under GDPR,’ he said, referring to General Data Protection Regulation dating back to 2018. 

‘When I started working in stores I used to print of faces on the board so staff could be aware but even that may not be allowed now. We are investing record amounts on security but we need legislation and government support.’ 

Currently, security guards have no more powers than the ordinary public. They are unable to search suspects without their consent, and while they can perform a citizen’s arrest this leaves them open to being sued. 

In the first video from John Lewis, the shoplifter can be seen looking up to a higher shelf and appears to select the most expensive item he can find – a Pure radio worth £369

In a second video, a man walks up to a pile of yellow tops and grabs them off the shelf 

‘The criminals know this, particularly the organised one – they know their rights,’ Mr Walker said in an exclusive interview. ‘We need more powers for security personnel to search suspects and detain them until police arrive.

‘Unfortunately, police ignore 70 per cent of calls for help with store thefts. It’s not necessarily their fault. They need to have the resources to allow them to take this crime epidemic seriously.  

‘We also need the courts to impose serious sentences. It’s almost become seen as a crime without punishment.’

Mr Walker added: ‘We call them frontline colleagues because they are the first point of contact with customers but sometimes it feels like they’re on the frontline of a war.’ 

Today, an Iceland staff member at a branch in Eltham said: ‘Assaults on staff are a frequent occurrence. On Monday we had one. 

‘They know when we don’t have a guard on staff. They’re clever about it when they go and steal.

‘It’s always the same people. We see the same people coming in and coming out.

‘We have a security guard most days of the week. When we stop them a lot of them just give it back but you do get aggressive thieves.’

The failure of police forces to take shoplifting seriously is a common complaint among retailers. 

Data released by the Co-op in July showed police are failing to attend more than two-thirds of retail crimes. 

Mr Gerrard told MailOnline: ‘Four or five colleagues will be physically attacked every day.

‘We’ve seen syringes, knives and we even saw a medieval mace a couple of years ago.’ 

The chain has invested in undercover security guards who perform citizen’s arrests on thieves.

‘These are highly trained expert guards – often ex-police and ex forces – who work undercover in stores where there’s a particular problem,’ Mr Gerrard said. 

‘They will intervene and make a citizen’s arrest and detain the individual.’

Mr Gerrard said the Co-op had invested heavily in store security but needed tougher enforcement to tackle the problem. 

‘Some forces are really good at coming out and some are really bad – there’s no consistency at all,’ he said. 

The John Lewis Partnership yesterday revealed it is facing a £12million jump in the cost of shoplifting as bosses at the retail giant blamed a surge in organised crime.

Dame Sharon said the recent spate in shoplifting was driven by ‘crime groups’ rather than thefts linked to the soaring cost of living.

Data released by the Co-Op in July showed police are failing to attend more than two-thirds of retail crimes. The chain has previously released footage of its staff grappling with shoplifters

The boss said she met with Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, earlier this week to discuss shoplifting.

She said: ‘Every retailer is seeing shoplifting that is much more organised crime than the opportunistic shoplifting you may have seen in the past – or linked to cost of living pressures.

‘It has almost become a job. It is shoplifting to order. 

‘We have some situations where we have stores that are relatively approximate to each other, and a gang goes from store to store.’

She said too few incidents are being followed up by the police, adding: ‘It is organised, to order, and an issue, rife across retail.

‘We have raised the issue because the safety of our staff is incredibly important. We also feel this is an important issue from a societal point of view.

‘That is why we have been calling for change in legislation specifically to tackle abuse of shop workers. We are wanting to work more closely with the police.

‘To be frank, if we aren’t dealing with low-level crime, that’s a huge issue more generally for society.’

The retailer called on the Government to change legislation in England and Wales to make it a criminal offence to abuse shopworkers, in line with current rules in Scotland.

Last month, the group’s supermarket arm Waitrose said it was offering free tea and coffee to police officers in an effort to boost their presence around stores.

The company said it mainly saw a rise in the cost of crime due to theft, as well as ‘related wastage’.

Ms White said: ‘Like other retailers, we have seen more activity linked to organised crime.

Team leader Charlene Corbin was bottled by a shoplifter at the Co-Op where she works

Pictured is the wound Ms Corbin sustained after being bottled by a thief at her store

‘We have raised the issue because the safety of our staff is incredibly important, as a business we also feel this is an important issue from a societal point of view.’ 

German discount supermarket chain Lidl said separately yesterday that it was stepping up investment in store security amid increasing rates of shoplifting, by ramping up CCTV coverage and rolling out more body-worn cameras in its outlets.

Ryan McDonnell, chief executive of Lidl’s British business, said it was a ‘social issue’ that the industry is working together to address.

He said: ‘There’s no doubt that it’s affecting the whole industry and we are not immune to it. The safety and security of our workers is a priority.

‘We are working with the British Retail Consortium with the rest of our competitors in the sector coming together to look at how we can tackle it.

‘We welcome the engagement from the Government and the police.’

Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said this week that he hopes to see ‘significant improvements’ in the way police find and prosecute offenders. 

A shoplifter has a tug of war with a Co-op worker in Liverpool 

He said that shoplifting was ‘clearly unacceptable’ and that the government would work with police forces to ‘drive down crime’ in the area.

The boss of Primark has also called for the shoplifting crisis to be taken ‘more seriously’ while the chairman of Asda has warned shoplifting has effectively been ‘decriminalised’. 

And Tesco is offering every frontline worker at the supermarket a body camera following an increase in violent attacks on staff.

Asked whether there was recognition that shoplifting was a problem, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters in Westminster: ‘Shoplifting is clearly unacceptable and then the public would expect us to work with police forces to drive down crime.

‘It’s worth noting that crime overall has fallen significantly, whether it’s on neighbour crimes like burglary, robbery, vehicle theft, or indeed violent crime.

‘Police forces in England and Wales have rightly committed to pursuing any available evidence where there’s a reasonable chance it could lead them to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime, and we hope to see significant improvements in the way the police approach crimes like shoplifting to bring more offenders to justice.’  

Paul Gerrard, Co-op’s campaigns and public affairs director, said there has been a 41 per cent rise in incidents of shoplifting in the first eight months of the year