When Hannah Cleary joined Morrisons to lead crime prevention and security, she inherited a fragmented technology landscape, frustrated colleagues, and a challenge that felt, in her own words, "almost insurmountable." Eighteen months later she’s implemented a successful retail crime prevention program.
In this webinar, she joined Auror's Ellen Dick for an honest conversation about the UK supermarket’s estate-wide strategy built on Retail Crime Intelligence, ANPR, body-worn cameras, and Subject Recognition.
Key takeaways:
- 30% of Morrisons' investigations are now initiated or significantly expanded by an ANPR alert, with detected vehicles carrying a 5X higher average event value.
- Morrisons built their ASR trial on top of an already established, well-used reporting platform, giving them the confidence to move forward without adding complexity.
- 9 out of 10 security colleagues at Morrisons reported feeling safer as a result of Auror intelligence, proving that intelligence-led crime prevention is as much a people outcome as a financial one.
How Retail Crime Intelligence drives security focus for Morrisons
Hannah was initially skeptical about Auror. Morrisons already had a reporting platform and she was not interested in paying for another.
Her lightbulb moment came after seeing the “agility and that focus” it brought to the corporate protections team. Their previous platform kept the data stuck in spreadsheets while Auror intelligence drove key security decisions.
During the early stages with Auror, Morrisons found that 10% of those committing crimes in their stores were responsible for 81% of harm and loss. That single finding shaped Morrisons’ entire approach to security and prevention.
Why 9 out of 10 Morrisons team members feel safer today
Before Morrisons joined the Auror Network to connect their intelligence across stores, their investigations team (Crime Hub) was powered by spreadsheets and notebooks. The first signs that something had shifted came from live activity on the Auror feed: a guard in Norfolk logged a report leading to a store detective spotting the same persons of interest live in their store. The Crime Hub connected both events, opening an investigation within minutes.
Hannah remembers the moment she started to 'get really excited about the capability [of Auror].’ Two or three months into Morrisons’ pilot with Auror, she looked at the output and saw a shift that wouldn’t have been possible with their old system.
“This connection wouldn't have been made, this investigation wouldn't have been built, this prosecution would not have happened."
Auror did not replace the people; it gave them visibility they had never had before. As a result, nine out of 10 Morrisons team members reported feeling safer as a result of having Auror intelligence at their fingertips.
Building the retail security foundation: What connected intelligence can deliver
The Morrisons Crime Hub is a lean investigations team delivering outsized impact:
Key retail investigation outcomes from Morrisons:
- Operation Banshee connected eight people responsible for £90,000 in loss, identified within weeks from just two store reports.
- Operation Ember mapped offending networks across the West Midlands and delivered measurable drops in incidents at targeted stores during the periods offenders were off the street.
"When they got to a point where we were able to say to these stores, ‘Banshee's in your shop. You've dealt with her before. Just let her get on with it, don't approach her, we've got such good footage,’" Hannah explained they knew with Auror they would secure prosecutions, and they did.
The ability to brief store colleagues in advance - giving them specific, actionable intelligence rather than a general alert - is one of the clearest indicators of how far the Morrisons strategy has come. Teams that previously faced repeat persons of interest without context now have names, histories, and a direct line to the Crime Hub through the Auror feed.
ANPR: the first layer of Risk Detection
Vehicle intelligence was not part of the original plan for Morrisons’ short-term security plans. It emerged from a straightforward operational challenge: stores were seeing repeat suspect vehicles but had no way to act on the information. Auror's integration with existing ANPR infrastructure bridged the gap, and the results have been undeniable. According to Hannah:
"I'd say about 30% of our investigations are initiated or dramatically expanded by virtue of an ANPR alert.”
That’s work they’re able to take off the “store’s hands.”
"We've got ANPR, we'll turn this into an investigation and get the police involved. That's a really, really valuable thing when you've got colleagues trying to do a million things well."
Vehicles of interest detected through ANPR carry an average event value 5X higher than a standard reported incident. For local prolific offenders, the impact is equally significant: stores no longer manage repeat visitors in isolation. The Crime Hub sees the vehicle, rings ahead, and takes ownership of the investigation.
Auror Subject Recognition: the second layer of protection
Morrisons are now piloting Auror Subject Recognition on top of their established Auror Core and ANPR foundation. After completing a careful gap analysis, they chose to deploy Subject Recognition in a way that layers onto existing workflows without adding process, risk, or complexity.
“We ended up with an incredible Subject Recognition product that bolts on… You’ve got all of those great efficiencies, but you’ve also got the added safeguarding and reassurance... When you’re bolting on something else like Subject Recognition - we need to do this properly - you know you’ve got that great foundation underneath it. So, it gives you a little bit more confidence.”
Advice for retailers exploring a security transformation
For any grocery retailer on the fence about Subject Recognition, Hannah's advice is practical and direct:
For retailers sitting where Morrisons was 18 months ago,
- Be brutally honest about your existing capabilities and what hasn't worked.
- Audit your suppliers. Are they genuinely committed to product development and integration?
- Don't buy anything that isn't simple, integrable, and scalable.
- Build steadily to establish the foundation before layering on incremental improvements
- Leave your ego at the door. Open, honest partnerships are the only way to move fast.
"I would never have thought something that sounds so simple could be so transformative. But it has been."
Watch the full webinar above to hear Hannah on Operation Ember and the West Midlands Police collaboration, how Morrisons approached the decision to pilot subject recognition, and what a fully transformed security strategy looks like for Morrisons in two to three years.
Hannah Cleary and Ellen Dick will continue this conversation live at Retail Risk London on 18 June. If you'd like to learn more about how Auror is helping retailers like Morrisons build an intelligence-led crime prevention strategy, get in touch.
