London shops deploy facial recognition in theft epidemic

London is in the grip of a shoplifting epidemic with a huge spike in crimes over the past year.

In this episode, the Evening Standard's crime correspondent Anthony France reports how store theft in the capital now costs retailers over £9 million each month as offences soared by almost 50 per cent.

The head of the British Retail Consortium says “violence, abuse and theft are all significantly up on pre-Covid levels”.

At the same time, Londoners with high-value watches continue to be targeted in increasingly violent robberies - and we’ll have more on this in part two of the Standard podcast.

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