Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Shoplifting in Inverness increased by 34% in 2017

Chief Inspector Colin Gough, area police commander for Inverness
Chief Inspector Colin Gough, area police commander for Inverness

Shoplifting in Inverness shot up by 34% in 2017 compared with the previous year according to Chief Inspector Colin Gough.

The Area Commander told the Inverness Area Committee’s policing performance summary there were a total of 457 cases.

He said: “What concerned me yet again was the increase in shoplifting, up by 116 compared to last year.

“When you look at these figures it has risen against the three and five-year baseline figures, it is not a spike – it is rising.”

The Chief Inspector noted that the increase in shoplifting has been offset to a degree by the high detection rate of close to 80%.

He said: “We as a service know our priority offenders so if you can impact on location, on perpetrator, on victim then you will see a decline.”

Central to that will be the combined efforts of BID, businesses and security guards linked directly with the police through the walkie-talkie “shop-link” system.

“There are good relations between the retail groups, I think that was long overdue. And with shop-link we are on it before an incident has been reported.”

He added: “There is more trust in reporting with the task team and shop link so the city centre police team can get to work.”

One good point was that so effective is the new shop-link system that often “we are on it before anything has officially been reported.”

Chief Inspector Gough said: “A lot of good work is going on. In terms of what we know clothing outlets are the number one target, three of four down are major supermarkets.”

The report also noted the number of incidents from drinking alcohol on the street to hate crime to vandalism was well below the five year baseline.