North Ayrshire is bucking the trend of retail crime, with the numbers of incidents falling and above the average detections being recorded. ‌

But Police Scotland are working on the problem with retailers across the community and in all parts of the country. ‌

This emerged at a North Ayrshire Police and Fire and Rescue Committee meeting on Monday. ‌

DI Jackie Knight, who heads up the recently-established Retail Crime Task Force, said that retail crime had increased across the UK.

In 2024-25 there were 44,000 shoplifting crimes across Scotland – up 15.8 per cent and 58.3 per cent above the five-year mean although this includes the pandemic period.

She said: “Since 2020-21 the number of retail offences against workers has increased. There were 6,000 crimes last year – up 12 per cen

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