Around 2,000 UK forecourts are to be offered free access to new crime reporting technology as operators grapple with rising fuel theft alongside increasing incidents of abuse and violence directed at frontline staff.
Forecourt Eye’s latest analysis shows that unpaid fuel incidents – including No Means of Payment declarations and drive-offs – are running 20 per cent above the level recorded before the conflict in Iran began leading to fuel prices rising sharply.
Based on a representative sample of 550 forecourts, the analysis recorded an average of 189 incidents a day in the five months following 28 February, compared with 158 a day in the preceding five months.
Extrapolated across all 8,350 UK forecourts, the figures suggest that daily incidents have risen from around 2,400 to approximately 2,872. The estimated volume of fuel involved has increased by 24 per cent, from 87,800 litres to 108,900 litres a day, while its estimated daily value has risen by 48 per cent, from around £131,000 to £194,000.
If sustained, the current rate would equate to approximately £70.7 million a year in unpaid fuel value - around £22.9 million more than the pre-conflict period – underlining the growing financial burden on forecourt operators as both incident levels and pump prices rise.
Alongside increasing fuel theft, forecourt operators are also continuing to report growing levels of abuse, intimidation and violence from frustrated customers, leaving staff on the frontline of a broader rise in retail crime.
As an urgent response, Forecourt Eye has announced plans to expand its fuel crime prevention and debt recovery capabilities by partnering with Facewatch to offer a new Crime Management Platform free of charge to more than 2,000 Forecourt Eye customers from this autumn.
Forecourt Eye Managing Director Michelle Henchoz explained that the move enables operators to manage fuel theft, shop crime and incident reporting to the police through one integrated system, with the option to join Facewatch’s Live Facial Recognition network, currently protecting thousands of stores across the UK.
"Our customers have told us they increasingly want one place to manage everything from unpaid fuel and ANPR intelligence through to shop theft, violence and police reporting," she said.
"This partnership delivers exactly that, while fitting seamlessly into the way they already work. As offending becomes more organised and more sophisticated, operators need joined-up technology that helps them protect both their forecourt and their convenience store."
Once viewed primarily as fuel filling stations, forecourts today are often major convenience retailers employing thousands of frontline staff.
As those businesses have evolved, so too has the nature of the crime they face, with fuel theft increasingly sitting alongside shop theft, violence and abuse as part of the same operational challenge.
Nick Fisher, Chief Executive of Facewatch, said: "The distinction between fuel crime and retail crime has largely disappeared. Modern forecourts face the same prolific offenders, violence and abuse experienced across the wider retail sector.
"By combining Forecourt Eye's expertise on the forecourt with Facewatch's crime management capability, we're giving operators a single platform to prevent crime, manage investigations and help police tackle repeat and violent offenders.”
He added: “The partnership also means forecourts can consider accessing our live facial recognition technology to create a really powerful shield against all types of crime and that next step would enable the capability to instantly alert police when the highest harm offenders are on their forecourts.”
Forecourt operators already use Forecourt Eye's tablet-based platform to manage incidents, including recovering payments from motorists who declare they have no means to pay and helping prevent drive offs through Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology.
From September, Forecourt Eye customers will see a new app added to their existing tablet devices, providing direct access to Facewatch's Crime Management Platform and giving operators enhanced crime reporting and evidence management without changing the way they work.
Retailers will not need to deploy live facial recognition cameras to use the Crime Management Platform.
However, operators choosing to introduce Facewatch Live Facial Recognition alongside Forecourt Eye's ANPR technology will, for the first time, be able to combine vehicle recognition on the forecourt with facial recognition inside the store, creating complementary layers of protection from the moment a vehicle arrives on site until the customer leaves.
Growing numbers of Forecourt Eye customers are already adopting ANPR technology to identify known offending vehicles before incidents occur.
Combined with Facewatch's live facial recognition capability, the partnership creates a uniquely joined-up approach to protecting both the forecourt and convenience store.
The collaboration also brings together two significant crime intelligence networks. Forecourt Eye maintains one of the UK's largest private databases of vehicles linked to fuel theft, now exceeding 300,000 registrations.
Combined with Facewatch's national database of known retail offenders, the partnership significantly expands the intelligence available to help identify prolific criminals operating across different sectors of the retail economy.
The move forms part of Facewatch's wider strategy to build an integrated crime management ecosystem that starts with preventing crime before it happens, while supporting the national effort to tackle prolific offenders through intelligence sharing, incident reporting and police-ready evidence management under a single governance framework.
Gordon Balmer, Executive Director of the Petrol Retailers Association, welcomed the announcement: "Today's forecourts are dealing with far more than fuel theft. Our members are reporting increasing levels of abuse and aggression towards colleagues who are simply doing their jobs and have no influence over the price displayed on the forecourt.
"Crime on Britain's forecourts no longer begins and ends at the pump. Whether it is unpaid fuel, shop theft, organised crime, or unacceptable abuse of staff, operators need joined-up solutions that recognise how these issues increasingly overlap.
“Bringing together technologies that help retailers prevent crime, manage incidents and support police investigations is a positive step for the industry."