Four shop staff hospitalised after being attacked with noxious substance in Northamptonshire

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Four staff members at a shop in Northamptonshire have been hospitalised after being sprayed with a noxious substance.

The victims were attacked with the substance at around 2:40pm on Sunday afternoon in the store in Corby, according to Northamptonshire Police.

The altercation began when staff at the Welland Vale Road Co-op confronted two young males who were behaving suspiciously, police said.

One of the pair then produced an unknown substance and sprayed it at the four staff members before fleeing from the shop, it is alleged.

The staff members, three of whom are women, suffered reddening to the skin and blistering of the mouth.

Paramedics, firefighters and police were all called to the shop, and all four staff members were admitted to hospital for treatment, before later being discharged.

Police are carrying out forensic tests on the clothing to see if they can determine what the noxious substance was.

The force is also appealing for witnesses, with detectives actively seeking the arrest of an identified male.

Attacks with noxious substances rose sharply to a peak in 2017 in the UK, at which point the country had one of the highest rates of attacks per person in the world.

Levels have since decreased, after the laws around the sale of sulphuric acid were tightened and tougher prison sentences for those carrying out attacks with such substances were brought in.

Earlier this month, Scotland Yard said it was investigating a string of burglaries in northwest London in which victims had been sprayed with a corrosive substace after masked men broke into their homes.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Northamptonshire Police on 101, quoting incident 233 of 09/04/2023.