A shopworker was arrested after a makeshift weapon – a plank with a nail – was found under the counter of a Birmingham mini-mart. The raid, led by police and Trading Standards officers on Soho Road in Handsworth, uncovered illegal cigarettes and snuff. The worker, a student from Afghanistan, admitted he thought selling illegal cigarettes was wrong. “Perhaps you should ask the manager, he’s the owner,” he said. But the owner was not around.
The raid, which Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood joined alongside BBC reporters, came after nine months of investigative reporting by BBC News into organised crime on British high streets. The reporting exposed drug gangs, child sexual exploitation, money laundering and immigration crime linked to shops selling illegal cigarettes, vapes and drugs.
“Illegal shops can now be shut for up to 12 months after BBC investigation into organised crime on high streets.”
Now the government has announced that such shops can be shut for up to a year – double the current maximum closure time. Under existing rules in England and Wales, authorities can close a shop for three months, with an extension to six months using anti-social behaviour legislation. The new powers will allow closures of up to 12 months.
“This is a massive national problem,” Mahmood said. Praising the BBC’s reporting, she said people felt high streets were being taken over by “organised crime [and] immigration criminality”. The government was “not prepared to tolerate it”, she added. This criminality “makes people lose faith, not just in their local area but in democracy, in what our country is, and we can’t let that happen”.
The Home Office said the extended closures will give investigators more time to gather evidence, pursue prosecutions and identify business owners, while preventing rogue operators from simply reopening and resuming illegal activity.
John Herriman, chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), said: “Closure orders are a key enforcement tool… for tackling ‘dodgy shops’.” He noted “almost universal support” from his profession for the new measures. Other Trading Standards officers told the BBC it would become less financially viable for unscrupulous business owners to sit out closure orders, and would force landlords to pay more attention to who they are renting to.
The announcement marks a direct response to BBC News’s lengthy investigation, which included repeated requests for an interview with the home secretary. Last week, Mahmood finally agreed to join the BBC on police raids on Soho Road – a high street bordering her own constituency. At one shop, officers found illegal cigarettes and snuff. The shopworker was arrested after the plank with a nail was discovered under the counter. He said he was a student from Afghanistan and thought selling illegal cigarettes was wrong, but blamed the absent manager. The question remains: will the new powers be enough to drive out the organised crime that has taken root?