The head of the Metropolitan Police Sir Mark Rowley has said retailers need to “step up more” and work with the police to help tackle shoplifting.

He said the police have “doubled down” on efforts to tackle theft in stores recently and have made progress, but that retailers had the right to be angry with the police for not doing enough two years ago.

Rowley told The Telegraph: “They were right to say to us, ‘please step up more’. And we have done. They need to step up more.”

The Met Police commissioner added that some retailers are “fantastic” and “very supportive” but he is “putting a marker down”.

“We’re making a lot of progress, but I need to challenge the retail sector. They now need to do better.”

He also said there was an incident where private security staff had messaged shoplifters to help “commit their criminality” and that other stores have refused to pass on evidence such as CCTV footage to police.

Others, he claimed, have refused to let colleagues take time off to attend court or provide witness statements for evidence.

He said: “They can give them time to give a statement and they will pay them work time to go to court. Others won’t do any of that.

“So if they’re not prepared to roll up their sleeves as corporate victims, it’s going to be tough for us to make progress.”

He did say that facial recognition technology has helped police identify shoplifters and thieves in around 40% of cases where CCTV images were collected, by checking the image of the person against a database of previously arrested people.

Rowley said the Met’s efforts at tackling shoplifting meant cases of store thefts went down 4.4% from April to December 2025.

Topics