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On the road with the NBCC Team in March 2026

On the road with the NBCC Team in March 2026

March has been a very busy month and epitomises the core role of the NBCC in providing support and prevention advice to ‘industry’ and UK law enforcement through soft influence and engagement. 

At the beginning of the Month, Lisa was one of the keynote speakers at Serious Organised Acquisitive Crime Conference organised by OPAL. Her speech titled ‘Why does retail crime matter?’ demonstrated to the audience made up of policing and investigative partners the importance of not under estimating retail crime and outlining the work which is currently being undertaken at pace across the UK by Law Enforcement and industry to tackle retail crime and harm.

The following week Lisa attended the Thames Valley Strategic Retail Crime Forum while Titus headed to Norwich to speak at the Norwich Business Crime Forum. His talk was about the work the NBCC is currently driving and coordinating along with the current national and political picture along with the national context to support the work being undertaken locally.

Titus, spent the majority of the rest of the week engaging and supporting policing and retailers through briefings concerning the likely impact of the protests being organised by the protest group Take Back Power which had promoted their aims through media briefings to conduct mass shoplifting, targeting businesses or venues in London and other cities UK wide based on social justice and wealth inequality issues and then donating any stolen property to local food banks.

 Monday 16th saw the start of National Business Crime Partnership with Lisa travelling across the country to Bristol. Firstly, to attend the excellent Fight Back Against Retail Crime event organised by Scott Ballard & Jack Cunningham of Smoke Screen. They have organised several of these events with the very first one taking place in Reading in 2023. Each event brings together local retail management, Business Improvement Districts and local policing for a short fast paced event made up of mini briefings but more importantly vendors who can supply solutions which work with the local environment. For more information, please visit Fight Back Against Retail Crime

 On the Tuesday 17th Lisa and Titus attended the Home Office as part of the Retail Crime Forum to brief the Policing Minister – Sarah Jones MP about work being taken nationally by UK Policing to address retail crime and harm along with providing an update of the work taking place across the five themes of the Tackling Retail Crime Together strategy.

 At the end of the week Titus hosted Chief inspector Ryan Chapman the North Yorkshire Police lead for retail crime. Ryan is also the strand lead for What Works in the Tackling Retail Crime Together strategy. The day provided a really useful opportunity to review the work which has already taken place and how the strand can be driven forward over the coming two years to deliver quality and durable outcomes for all retailers regardless of their size.

On Monday 23rd, Titus attended Tackling Retail Crime Together Steering Group to provide an update on the work he is doing to support the various Strand Leads. On Tuesday he headed to Coventry to attend Retail Risk – On the Move. dedicated specifically to supply chain risk management and loss prevention within the retail sector focusing on the unique challenges of protecting goods, vehicles, and facilities as they move through the logistics network.

The following Thursday Lisa attended the final meeting of the Pegasus Steering Group hosted by Mitie at the Shard.  Pegasus saw the capacity for all retailers to report intelligence about organised criminal gangs targeting their businesses to Opal the National Acquisitive Crime Intelligence Unit to assess and develop before being tasked to UK policing for action. The project has been a success and with additional government funding will be business as usual for OPAL going forward.  A Tackling Retail Crime Together event was held afterwards to update on progress so far and plans for the future.

As part of our work to support UK Policing the NBCC hold regular online meetings with the Retail Crime Leads for the various UK Police Forces. During the month of March we were pleased to host inputs from the following people and organisations as part of our Knowledge Series; - Steve Lang from DISC,  D/Supt Andy Farrell talking about Clear, Hold, Build and how it could be used in Town Centres and finally Helen Dickinson the Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium who talked about key findings from their recent survey.

 March is now a wrap. We wish you all a Happy Easter and look forward to telling you about what we have been up to in April soon.