Rules are ‘making detection difficult’

Police chief blames social distancing for sharp fall in rate of catching burglars

Police have blamed social distancing rules for their failure to catch the criminals responsible for a surge of lockdown break-ins in Dundee.

But Tayside’s top policeman, Chief Superintendent Andrew Todd, would not elaborate on his explanation for officers not tracing the culprit in more than 80% of break-ins between April and June.

He stated in his quarterly report to Dundee councillors, to be presented next week: “The detection rate for these crimes has reduced to 18.3%, being directly impacted by some Covid-19 restrictions and social distancing measures.

“These same factors did not present the same challenge when investigating largely empty commercial premises.”

The corresponding figure for the last period was 32.4% – a detection rate fall from roughly a third to less than a fifth.

Police Scotland declined to offer further detail on which social distancing measures had affected police work, or how.

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said proper procedure demands the chief superintendent answer questions at Monday’s committee before expanding on the points raised in his report.

The number of break-ins in Dundee has risen by around 62%, an increase from 37 to 60, according to the quarterly update.

Police have warned the criminals broke into homes with the intent to steal in at least 41 of the recorded Dundee cases.

Detection rates – the way officers measure their success in catching perpetrators – have fallen away sharply across the whole region.

Break-ins in Perth in Kinross have fallen from 33 to 20 and in Angus from 22 to 12, both drops of more than 60%.

But detection rates have fallen to only 10% in Perth and Kinross, 15% in Angus and 18% in Dundee.

The figures showed the number of break-ins to commercial properties had fallen slightly from 35 to 32 with a detection rate of almost 47%.

The number of sheds and outbuildings targeted had grown from eight to 15 over the three months.

Mr Todd also warned of a gang targeting care homes in his report.

He said: “During the Covid-19 period, there has been an overall increase in all types of housebreaking from 80 crimes last year to 107 this year. This is an increase of around 33%.”

Among those affected this year was Carnoustie pensioner Peter Murphy, targeted by a gang who broke in in May, although his case was solved.

As he slept in his family home in the early hours, the thieves made off with a television, car and computer equipment belonging to his son.

Mr Murphy, in his 80s, said the family were very fortunate in the circumstances to get a very rapid response from police officers.

“They made a thorough investigation of the break-in resulting in the arrest of all of the gang involved and also were successful in finding both our car and the TV set during the course of the following two to three weeks,” he said.