By Ian Findlay, industrial reporter

THE SCOTTISH Executive was attacked last night for taking too much of a “softly, softly” approach to crime problems afflicting convenience stores.

As the Scottish Grocers’ Federation released statistics showing an alarming rise in crimes hitting stores across Scotland, its chief executive, Dundonian Scott Landsburgh, called for tougher and swifter punishments for the perpetrators.

“The softly, softly approach that we have just now is clearly not working and things are continuing to get worse,” he said.

Mr Landsburgh added, “These people are not guilty of just anti-social behaviour, they are guilty of carrying out crimes, and we need to hit them with sanctions that are both effective and can be brought to bear quickly.”

He said that in England and Wales the use of fixed-penalty fines for those caught shoplifting or committing certain other types of retail crime appeared to be having some success.

“England and Wales are currently light years ahead of where we are in Scotland on the issue of tackling retail crime,” he commented.

“It’s quite apparent that we are trailing the rest of the UK—and something needs to be done about it.”

He was speaking as the federation released the results of its third annual crime survey, for the 12 months to the end of December.

The results have emerged to coincide with the federation’s annual conference in St Andrews this weekend.

Gathering of information for the survey has been done on a much more sophisticated basis this year and the federation has conceded that this may have contributed in part to the substantial increases which have emerged.

However, Mr Landsburgh said yesterday that even when this was taken into account the report still showed a very significant increase in retail crimes during the past year. The headline results from the latest survey make grim reading.

The statistics show:

Incidents of physical violence have increased by 100%.

Threats of violence have risen by almost 500%.

Completed burglaries have risen over 400% compared with 2003, along with a 57% increase in attempted burglaries.

Retailers have had to bear £250,000 in repair costs throughout 2004 as a result of burglaries.

Investment in crime prevention has grown by 80% to £1.75 million per annum since 2002.

The total cost of theft from customers totalled £1,308,791 in 2004, a rise of £40,779 since 2003.

The number of attempted burglaries has risen from 126 in 2003 to 198 in 2004.

The number of till snatches almost doubled in 2004 when compared to the 2003 figures.

As it issued the results yesterday the SGF said that as an organisation it had long argued that more had to be done by the judiciary in ensuring that sanctions are brought more readily to bear on the perpetrators of “neighbourhood crime.”

The federation was concerned that there had been a “very slow uptake” in the sanctions of interim anti-social behaviour orders and ASBOs and that the flaw in this policy is due to the fact that, unlike the rest of the UK, chief constables in Scotland are not able to start the process of raising an ASBO.

“It appears that the Scottish Executive just doesn’t want chief constables to have this role,” said Mr Landsburgh last night.

“However, the fact of the matter is that anti-social behaviour is more than just a housing problem, it’s a big problem for neighbourhood stores. We really have to stop pussy-footing around with this problem.”

He called for talks to take place with the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland about dealing with complaints from shopkeepers much more quickly than appeared to be happening in many instances at present.