Crime rising quickest in the UK in beloved spa town

A famous Roman spa, gorgeous Georgian architecture and a renowned rugby team have helped put Bath on the map - but now the picturesque city is becoming known as the centre of a shoplifting epidemic.

Police say the theft problem is growing faster in this area than anywhere else in the country.

And residents believe its relative wealth has made it a target for shoplifting gangs.

Figures have revealed shoplifting offences rose in Bath by more than 83 per cent in the 12 months to September.

This amounts to 138.6 per 10,000 people – making it the eighth-worst locality in England in absolute terms.

As a result of the spike in thefts, business owners have been forced to stock their shelves with dummy products to deter criminals.

Facial recognition technology is also being used in the city's House of Fraser to alert security staff to known offenders.

The problem was described as 'out-of-control' and 'unsustainable' by Dan Norris, now the Labour MP for East Somerset and Hanham and a junior minister.

He told The Telegraph: 'For the shops that stay open, they will be forced to put up prices to make up for the lost goods – making this frightening cost-of-living crisis even worse for all.'

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Bath has always been a popular destination for tourists and shoppers from nearby towns and villages, especially during the festive season when its Christmas market is open.

This means the city centre is very crowded on a regular basis, which makes it easier for the 'rogue elements to go undetected'.

Paul Crossley, a longstanding Liberal Democrat member of Bath and North East Somerset council, said: 'The centre of Bath is heaving, particularly towards Christmas.

'You have the opportunistic shoplifters, those who are in distress and feel they can't put food on the table, but the organised gangs are attracted to the centre.'

More than 50 shoplifting offences were reported in the central shopping district in September alone, Avon and Somerset Police data shows.

In an effort to crack down on the crime wave, the force has mounted a number of 'days of action', which has seen them send plain-clothes officers on patrol and work with private security firms hired by desperate business owners.

As a result, four prolific offenders appeared at Bath Magistrates' Court in October, charged with dozens of shoplifting offences each.

One of them, a 21-year-old man of no fixed abode, was charged with 16 offences including four instances of theft of tobacco products and vapes worth more than £2,000.

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A 24-year-old woman also admitted to three thefts from a hair salon on three dates in September. She received a £40 fine and was ordered to pay £969.57 in compensation.

Magistrates also heard how a 45-year-old local had entered the staff-only area of a shop to steal tobacco and vapes worth £300, while a 34-year-old man, of no fixed abode, was charged with 18 theft offences between September and October.

Chief Inspector Rebecca Wells-Cole, Force Lead for Business Crime, said: 'These crimes are often described as 'low-level offending', but their impact on both businesses and the wider community is huge.

'We take thefts from shops seriously and encourage store workers to report incidents. We do have to prioritise all calls based on the likelihood of someone coming to immediate harm, so any incident in which there has been violence and a suspect remains on the scene will be prioritised.

Elsewhere, Hartlepool was found to be the worst-afflicted town by shoplifting in England, with 223.7 offences per 10,000 people in the 12 months to September - followed by Lincoln, Mansfield and Crawley.

But Bath is seeing the problem getting worse faster than anyone else.

Bedford also saw a sharp increase in recorded offences – 70.7 per cent – while shoplifting incidents rose by 46.7 per cent in Gloucester.

In response to the national epidemic, the Government pledged to create a new standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker, to stifle the violence that often follows when shoplifters are confronted.

Official figures from the Office for National Statistics show stores across the country are reporting two thefts a minute to police, with June hitting a record high of 469,788. 

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This crimewave is estimated by the British Retail Consortium to cost UK businesses £2billion.

While London as a whole has a low per capita rate of shoplifting, the West End is still hotbed for the crime.

Westminster sees 203 recorded shoplifting offences per 10,000 residents - followed by Kensington & Chelsea and Camden.  

In terms of growth in shoplifting over the past year in the capital, this has been highest in the City of London (up 145%) followed by Hackney (up 92%) and Harrow (up 64%). 

Scott Corfe, director of economics and data at Public First, said: 'Most people think shoplifting is surging and many people are seeing it with their own eyes. And there's not a particularly neat North-South or rich-poor story to which places are most affected.

'As well as relatively deprived communities such as Hartlepool, shoplifting is becoming part of daily life in apparently middle-class havens like Bath.

'It's hard to know whether this is related to permissive policing, organised gangs or pockets of poverty. Either way, it's contributing to a sense that Britain is lawless and that the public realm is crumbling.'