Political opinion: Labour candidate for Sussex PCC says sorting out shoplifting comes first

Paul will be running against Conservative candidate Katy Bourne who has been in the post for more than ten years.

The PCC was introduced as a role just over a decade ago, with the intention of lending a democratic voice to the police. They have the power to decide police strategy, and select the Chief Constable.

Standing as the Labour and Co-operative candidate, Mr Richards’ headline policies include tackling shoplifting and anti-social behaviour, putting more money into Youth clubs, and improving support for victims and witnesses.

Mr Richards said he was “gobsmacked” by the accounts of shoplifting he has heard from retailers across Sussex. He explained: “I’ve been visiting lots of co-op stores and it’s happening on an industrial scale.

“It’s organised by crime gangs. It’s thieves going in and stealing to order. The co-op in Worthing told me that they could show me the restaurants where their goods are being sold."

Mr Richards blamed the Tory government for the “epidemic” of shoplifting that Britain now faces, with Sussex seeing a 45 per cent increase in incidents last year.

“The one thing the government has done is take away all the Trading Standards officers right from local authorities, as so it’s hard to go to the car boot sales and monitor the sales in the car parks and pubs and so on”, he said.

Mr Richards added: “We need more prevention. We need neighbourhood police teams that we always insist turn up to serious incidents of theft. We need more CCTV, and more two-way radio sets.”

If he were elected as Sussex PCC, Mr Richard claims that he would set out to tackle the addiction issues that are often the root of escalating thefts.

“We need to help addicts on the street deal with their addiction issues, give them counselling, and actually get them out of the grip of organised crime”, he said.

With many incidents of shoplifting going unreported, and even fewer resulting in prosecution, Mr Richards is emphatic that something needs to change. “I would insist that the police turn up”, he said.

To make sure they do, Mr Richards says he will recruit 400 more police officers. “The government cut policing by 20,000 cops in 2012, it was one of the most stupid decisions by the government ever and we’ve been playing catch up ever since.

“There’s a feeling that if you phone the cops, they don’t even turn up. We need police on the ground. I think that would make a big difference.”