Many people working in shops in Hartlepool Borough are "afraid to come to work" due to fear of violence and abuse linked to thefts, shows a recent survey of businesses.
The feedback forms part of a consultation on the experiences of business owners and retailer held by Hartlepool Borough Council. The survey was carried out from November to January, BBC reported citing the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Respondents talked about a "fear of violence, verbal abuse and threatening behaviour", council officers said.
At an audit and governance committee meeting held recently, scrutiny and legal support officer Gemma Jones said some businesses reported their staff had "experienced actual violence".
Speaking about the criminals targeting shops and businesses, scrutiny manager Joan Stevens said, "The cohort of reoffenders is relatively small and they're responsible for a large amount of the retail crime or thefts that exist in the town."
She added that data indicated "over 50 per cent of theft appears to be driven by substance misuse issues", which was supported by findings from police interviews with offenders.
Meanwhile, the meeting was told "it didn't appear that the cost of living crisis was a significant impact" in driving retail crime.
The consultation was carried out as part of the committee's investigation into "ways of designing out and reducing incidents of retail crime".
It will culminate in a final report in March.Councillors also saw data from Cleveland Police which indicated that "70 per cent of thefts in Hartlepool are actually undertaken by 12 individuals".
The survey report comes a day after it was reported that theft and violence against retail workers in Britain soared to record levels last year and are "out of control", driven partly by criminal gangs.
Industry body the British Retail Consortium's (BRC) annual crime survey released on Thursday (30) found more than 20 million incidents of theft were committed in the year to 31 August 2024, which equates to 55,000 a day, costing retailers a total £2.2 billion.
The BRC said many more incidents in the latest period were linked to organised crime, with gangs systematically targeting stores across the country.
Incidents of violence and abuse in 2023/24 climbed to over 2,000 per day, up from 1,300 the year before. This is more than three times what it was in 2020, when there were just 455 incidents a day.
Incidents included racial or sexual abuse, physical assault or threats with weapons. There were 70 incidents per day which involved a weapon, more than double the previous year.
