Mohammad Sheikh has contacted police 100 times since opening his shop a year ago and not one shoplifter has been prosecuted
A shop owner says he’s made more than 100 calls to police reporting robberies since opening – but no-one has been prosecuted. Owner of News Plus Mohammad Sheikh said since opening in November last year the shop has been targetted “every day” by shoplifters – including mulitple assaults on his staff behind the counter.
But Mohammed said despite reporting all the incidents to police he said they ‘do nothing’ to catch culprits or prevent them from happening. And he has now admitted that they can’t stay open much longer if something isn’t done.
Mohammad said he is exhausted from constantly dealing with the issues in the Glasgow store and says that, in its first year since opening, the business has lost around £20,000. He reports every single incident to the police, with over 100 reports filed in the past year, but has yet to see any action against any offenders.
“They target us instead of the bigger shops because they have security guards and loads of staff, and we don’t,” Mohammad said. He added: “The police tell us we can’t touch them, can’t stop them, and can’t lock them in the store to await officers arriving. The only advice police give us is to have two members of staff on all the time – we can’t afford to do that.
“Even if we could, we could have ten staff in here and it wouldn’t make a difference because we’re powerless against them.”
Mohammad has owned shops in the city for over 20 years, but says this store is “the worst trouble he has ever had.” He said: “I’m stressed all the time because the business is making a loss, my staff are not feeling safe at work. “No one should be going to work and not feeling safe.”
Mohammad said individuals or groups enter the shop, harass staff, push them around, and throw items at them before stealing stock from the shelves and behind the counter. A staff member in the shop said: “It’s shocking, they come in at certain times of the day and they’re lifting sometimes hundreds of pounds worth of stuff.
“They even reach over or come behind the counter to steal vapes. There’s not a lot we can do to defend ourselves; you don’t know if they could be carrying a weapon, and it can be really scary.”
The “struggling” store is open 24 hours a day, but the majority of incidents occur around 5pm or 6pm. There are “groups of young boys, between five and 10 at a time”, who are “repeat offenders”, and Mohammad thinks they “must be known” to the cops.
He said: “We should be protected by the police, and they definitely aren’t right now, there’s not enough patrols and not enough police on the streets – there’s so much crime now. We’ve done our job on our side by reporting them; now it’s in the police’s hands. They need to arrest them. That’s their job.
“If they don’t arrest these boys, they will keep going, and their crimes could get more serious. They should be ashamed because they have done nothing for us.”
One of the most recent shocking incidents saw a person enter the shop, barge behind the counter, take products from behind there, before jumping over the counter and destroying the perspex screen and pulling over display units. Mohammad also told us that a group of tourists who were in the shop had browsed the store and picked up a large number of items when one of the “repeat offenders” entered the store and started causing trouble.
“The tourists just put everything down and left, what an advert for the city”, sighed Mohammad. When asked if he would recommend opening a business on Sauchiehall Street to any other companies, Mohammad replied with a definite “no.”
Mohammad is concerned for the safety of his staff, and believes more needs to be done to curb violent crime in the city centre. He said: “The city centre crime rate has gone up – it will create a bad image for Glasgow city centre and people won’t want to come anymore. This is beyond shoplifting – this is robbery.
“These perpetrators should be arrested, otherwise the problem will get worse. There has been failure to provide safety and security in the city centre and people are afraid.”
Inspector Jonathan Watters from Police Scotland said: “We are aware of recent incidents at this address and are liaising with the reporter to gather more detail on their concerns and address any issues raised. Officers carry out high-visibility patrols throughout the city centre every day to deter criminality and provide public reassurance. We also work closely with businesses, security staff and local residents on crime prevention.
“A dedicated Retail Crime Taskforce has recently been set up in Glasgow to further enhance our enforcement and intelligence gathering for retail crimes, and support the prevention work we carry out with retailers throughout the city.”
