Is Assaulting a Retail Worker Now a Specific Criminal Offence in the UK?

Not yet, though the law to make it one already exists. Sections 45 and 46 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 create a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker, but as of the date below, those sections haven’t been switched on. The offence exists on paper, written into an Act that received Royal Assent, but a court can’t actually convict anyone under it until separate commencement regulations bring it into force.

What Section 45 Actually Says?

Section 45 states that a person who assaults a retail worker “at work” commits an offence under that section. The definition is broader than it first sounds.

A “retail worker at work” covers:

• Someone working on retail premises for or on behalf of the owner or occupier
• The owner or occupier themselves, if they’re the one facing the assault
• Unpaid workers, including volunteers, not just paid staff

“Retail premises” is defined to include anywhere used wholly or mainly for retail sale, which extends to market stalls and vehicles used for selling goods, not just shops with a fixed address.

Where Things Currently Stand?

The offence exists in law, but it isn’t yet something a court can actually convict someone under. A large block of the Act, covering measures such as corporate liability and intimate image offences, commenced on 29 June 2026, two months after Royal Assent. The retail worker offence wasn’t part of that batch. It’s sitting in the “awaiting commencement” category alongside Respect Orders and several other new police powers, waiting on the Ministry of Justice to lay separate commencement regulations.

Until that happens, an assault on a shop worker is still charged under the general criminal law that already applies to everyone: common assault for the lower-level end, or actual bodily harm where an injury results. Those charges carry their own separate maximum penalties and don’t require proving the victim was working in a retail role at the time.

The Penalty Once the Offence is Live

Once Sections 45 and 46 are commenced, a conviction on summary trial carries imprisonment up to the general limit for a magistrates’ court, currently six months, rising to 51 weeks once a related provision of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is separately brought into force, an unlimited fine, or both.

That penalty ceiling sits below what a serious ABH charge can attract in the Crown Court, which is part of the point. The new offence isn’t designed to replace the more serious charges available for violent assaults, it’s built to give magistrates a specific, quicker route to a conviction for the kind of confrontation retail staff report most often: being pushed, grabbed, spat at, or struck during a dispute over age-restricted sales, theft, or refunds.

The Criminal Behaviour Order Presumption

Section 46 adds something that doesn’t exist for an ordinary common assault conviction. On a first conviction under the new offence, a court must impose a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) against the offender, unless there are exceptional circumstances or the case ends in an absolute discharge.

A CBO can ban someone from specific shops, from certain streets, or from entering retail premises at particular times. Breaching the order is itself a separate criminal offence, independent of the original assault conviction.

First convictions for a low-level offence like this rarely end in immediate custody, magistrates typically have several sentencing options available before reaching for a prison term. It’s worth understanding what a suspended sentence actually involves before assuming a conviction automatically means time in custody, since a suspended sentence combined with a CBO is a realistic outcome for a first offence of this kind.

Why a Standalone Offence Was Created?

The government’s own retail crime factsheet explains the reasoning in fairly direct terms: assaults on retail workers are currently absorbed into general assault statistics, which makes it hard to know the true scale of the problem. A separate offence means separate recording, which in turn is meant to support more consistent investigation and prosecution.

The approach is modelled on Scotland, where the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) Act 2021 has applied a near-identical standalone offence since 2021.

What the Offence Doesn’t Cover?

The definition is tied to someone working “on retail premises.” Delivery riders and drivers, who face a significant share of the abuse reported in the sector, fall outside that definition because they aren’t working on the premises itself. Retailers and unions raised this gap while the Bill was going through Parliament, and it remains unresolved in the Act as passed.

What to Do Right Now?

Since the new offence isn’t yet operative, the practical advice for anyone dealing with this today doesn’t change:

• Report any assault to the police as you normally would, it will be charged under existing common assault or ABH law
• Keep any available CCTV footage or witness details, since evidence requirements don’t shift once the new offence commences
• If you’re an employer, there’s no new reporting obligation to comply with yet, though tightening incident logging now will make the transition easier once commencement regulations are laid
• Check back on the commencement date specifically, rather than assuming the offence applies once the Act itself became law

Independent legislation-tracking sites, such as legislation.uk’s rolling commencement tracker, are generally quicker to reflect a new commencement date than most news coverage, which tends to treat Royal Assent as if it were the same thing as a provision taking effect.

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