The boss of Marks & Spencer has said what every shop worker, every security guard, and every high street business owner already knows: crime is not falling. It is becoming more brazen, more organised, more aggressive and the system is not stopping it.

When one of the country’s largest retailers says its staff are being assaulted, headbutted, hospitalised, and attacked with chemicals, that is not a perception problem – as Sadiq Khan have us believe.

That is a failure of government.

As a Senior Crown Prosecutor, I dealt with these cases day in, day out.

And what shocked me most was not only the volume of offending, it was how willing institutions had become to excuse it.
I remember standing up in court, genuinely infuriated, saying: ‘yes, you’ve dealt with the theft but what about the assault on the security guards? What about the staff who were threatened? Are we just not going to punish that? Are there no consequences for it?’

Instead, the focus would be whether the defendant had a drug problem, an alcohol addiction, or a difficult background.

I have spoken to countless shopkeepers who have simply given up. They do not call the police anymore.

One manager at my local Sainsbury’s told me it happens every half an hour. Smaller shop owners in London tell me they believe their calls are being screened out by 999.

What makes this worse is that this is not a problem of capability. It is a problem of will. We already have the tools.

Criminal Behaviour Orders exist specifically to deal with repeat offenders. They allow individuals to be banned from areas, high streets, and specific shops. Used properly, they would remove the very people driving this cycle of repeat offending.

Repeat offenders should face escalating consequences, not recycled leniency. Police must prioritise visible policing and consistent enforcement in known hotspots. And courts must stop treating victims as an afterthought.

Because right now, we have drifted into a system where the people doing the right thing are left to deal with the consequences, and the people breaking the law are managed rather than stopped.

Thinus Keeve has said this is becoming routine. He is right, and until there are real, visible consequences, it will stay that way.