We all pay the price as retail crime gets out of control in city - Donald Anderson

I had previously been shocked at a meeting with store staff and local MP Ian Murray, who advised retail crime was a bigger problem in Edinburgh than elsewhere in Scotland.

Increase in shoplifting is alarming, with 11,409 shoplifting incidents reported to police in the year up to June

Ian said that one store he’d visited lost nearly £200,000 a year to retail crime. Such is the problem that now the entire spirit section of the Co-op has been removed. Customers must now ask if they want spirits to be fetched for them.

A recent trip to nearby Morrisons proved to be just as disturbing. As I entered the store a young woman barged past, pushing me out of the way. I thought she was just rude until I saw a member of staff chasing after her.

She had two full shopping bags of stolen goods and the poor staff member tried to grab the bags – and was careful not to grab the woman. A short struggle ensued but she made off with her two bags of loot.

When I returned to Morrison’s again, there was a Crimestoppers CCTV van outside. This was not the police. The van was sponsored by Morrisons.

These are not random incidents. Walking down South St Andrew Street recently to get my bus home I saw a pile of about 15 coat hangers from the Princes Street H&M shop. All the clothes that hung on them had presumably been spirited away by the thieves who took them.

Sainsbury’s supermarkets is in the headlines because it has pioneered facial recognition cameras to keep known shoplifters out of its stores. The controversy focused on a small number of cases where staff mistakenly asked innocent members of the public to leave the store. I hope Sainsbury’s persists.

Retail theft is not a victimless crime. We all pay more for our goods and services because of retail crime. Poorer people are hit disproportionately because, of course, they pay a higher share of their income on food and clothes, and the poor shop staff suffer huge stress dealing with crime and criminals as well.

I heard recently that Edinburgh has fewer police than it had in 1975. Since the creation of Police Scotland, Edinburgh’s police service has reduced.

Crime is lower than it was in 1975 and violent crime is much lower. However, the pressures on police time are much more substantial. The bureaucracy involved in tackling crime has grown and we rightly place more pressure on police to do their job well. What we’re missing is the opportunity to push crime right down and we risk making it much worse. If some people get away with stealing on a regular basis, they will simply carry on doing so.

This week this very paper has rightly championed the cause of small shopkeepers facing this issue. The paper highlighted the plight of small shop owners in some of the city’s poorest areas and that at 11,409 shop thefts reported this year, shoplifting is the city’s most reported crime.

Retail crime is out of control, and we can’t allow it to go unchallenged. There is apparently a new ‘Retail Crime Task Force’. Let’s hope that it can stem this tidal wave of shoplifting.