Scotland sees surge in shoplifting as desperate people steal food Shoplifting has hit a five-year high in Scotland as increasingly desperate people resort to stealing food from supermarkets, according to […]

Shoplifting has hit a five-year high in Scotland as increasingly desperate people resort to stealing food from supermarkets, according to police statistics.

Figures published by Police Scotland show that shoplifting has increased by almost 10 per cent in the past year, with 31,321 crimes recorded between April 2017 and the end of March.

“It is a scandal that in a country as prosperous as Scotland anyone should be left hungry” The i politics newsletter cut through the noise Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription. Scottish Government

Officers said this was an increase of more than 2,700 crimes on the previous year, with many of the incidents related to people trying to steal food.

The Scottish Government said it was a “scandal” that people were considering breaking the law in order to feed themselves and blamed the trend on UK welfare reforms.

The data was published in Police Scotland’s management information report for 2017/18, which showed that more than 2.5m calls were made to the single force in the course of the year.

Incidents of fraud have also jumped by almost 18 per cent, with online credit card fraud and other types of cyber-crime highlighted as an increasing threat to the public.

The force said the increase had been driven by cyber-enabled fraud such as “vishing”, where criminals try to persuade people to part with money over the phone.

Sexual crimes

The number of murders and serious assaults recorded was down on the previous year, but there was a rise in sexual crimes, which police said reflected increased reporting.

Police Scotland’s Interim Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said many crimes were being “enabled by new technologies”, forcing officers to change the way they worked.

“Our priority is to keep people safe and we are adapting the way we work to enable us to better respond to the increase in online crime,” he added.

“We are moving officers from back office roles onto the frontline, but frontline policing has also moved into the virtual world where an increasing number of crimes are being committed.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “It is a scandal that in a country as prosperous as Scotland anyone should be left hungry and have to rely on emergency food provision, or consider breaking the law to meet their daily needs.

“We spend more than £100m annually to mitigate the damaging impact of the UK Government’s welfare changes – which are a key driver in this situation.

“In addition, we increased our Fair Food Fund to £1.5m this year to help people access healthy and nutritious food in a dignified way.”