3 hours Ago By Evgenia Filimianova
The government’s plan to toughen shoplifting laws would worsen court backlogs and divert resources from more serious cases, critics have warned. Under the proposed Crime and Policing Bill, all shoplifting offences—including those involving goods worth less than £200—would be classified as either-way offences, meaning they could be tried in either magistrates’ courts or Crown Court. Ministers say the move is needed to tackle rising retail crime, but critics argue it will increase pressure on the justice system.
Philp warned that reclassifying shoplifting as an either-way offence would allow more defendants to request a jury trial in Crown Court, significantly increasing case delays. “Instead of those cases being heard in the magistrates’ court within six to eight weeks, there could be a delay of up to one and a half years. I am sure that is not the government’s intention, but that is what could happen if the change is made,” he said.
Legal experts say the Crown Court system is already stretched, following COVID-19 lockdown-related backlogs and staff shortages. In the year ending September 2024, the backlog reached a record high of 73,000 cases, compared to the pre-lockdown low of 33,290 in March 2019. Stuart Nolan, chair of the Criminal Law Committee at The Law Society told The Epoch Times that sending more shoplifting cases to Crown Court would be costly and time-consuming.
“This would put pressure on the system. If a defendant denies the charge, they have a choice to go to Crown Court, where cases take much longer to be heard,” he said. For cases where theft is of high value, magistrates already refer them to Crown Court.
But under the new proposals, even low-value shoplifting cases could be sent to Crown Court. “If you stole something small, say a pair of shoes, that case would normally be dealt with quickly in magistrates’ court. But if the defendant chooses a jury trial, that case could take months or longer to resolve,” said Nolan.
He added that defendants who take their cases to Crown Court risk receiving a tougher sentence if found guilty than they would in a magistrates’ court. Nolan questioned whether harsher sentences would reduce shoplifting. “Academically, there’s not a lot of good evidence that long sentences deter people,” he said, adding that many offenders steal owing to poverty or drug addiction, rather than weighing up legal consequences.
Nolan also noted that Crown Court trials require “premium” resources and it would be difficult to see how extra cases wouldn’t bring pressure on the justice system. “They are more costly because you need juries. You often have bigger buildings and more time for jury trials than in magistrates’ court,” he said.
“That kind of crime spreads. It creates a sense of lawlessness and huge anger and frustration among the law-abiding majority, who see criminals getting away with it and respect for the law hollowed out,” she told Parliament. The move to change the £200 threshold comes amid a record spike in shoplifting offences since 2003, rising 23 percent in the year to September 2024.
The ACS report estimates the total cost of crime to convenience stores at £316 million, with each shop losing an average of £6,000 per year. Both the ACS and the BRC welcomed the proposed bill and the abolition of the £200 shoplifting threshold. “We look forward to seeing crucial legislation to protect retail workers being put in place later this year,” said BRC Chief Executive Helen Dickinson.
Over the past three years, 96 percent of shoplifting convictions happened in magistrates’ courts, which suggests that most of them were thefts of low-value goods. Philp pointed to the government’s own impact assessment, saying, “If this system was ineffective, why did 90 percent of charges relate to goods under £200?” He rejected the claim that the bill will result in “extraordinary change in the way shoplifting is treated.” “According to the government’s own impact assessment, there will be no change in the number of charges as a result of this alteration.
The home secretary points to this matter as some kind of silver bullet, but I am afraid to say that her own impact assessment says something very different indeed,” Philp told MPs..
