Tuesday September 23rd 2025
Police Scotland
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Small shop workers could soon be given body cameras to wear by police in the fight against shoplifting in Midlothian.
The county’s Chief Inspector Kirsty McArthur-Kerr this week told councillors that the video equipment was being considered to support businesses who could not afford to install CCTV systems in their stores.
Speaking as the latest figures revealed reports of shoplifting thefts had gone up by more than 90 per cent in the first quarter of the year, compared to its five year average, the police chief said work was ongoing to tackle the issue in the county.
She told a meeting of the council’s police and fire rescue board: “As part of our funding which we have from the Government for the shoplifting task force, locally we are looking, within the division, to see if we can use part of that funding potentially for body worn videos for some of our smaller premises that are hard hit.
“(We are) recognising these businesses don’t have the money to put in big CCTV systems like Tesco etc so that is part of our strategy, so that might be coming to Midlothian, we are just doing the costing and procurement for that at the moment.”
Chief Inspector McArthur-Kerr revealed the plans after Councillor Willie McEwan asked council officers if it was possible for the local authority to demand premises which sold alcohol install CCTV as part of their licensing conditions to ‘help police’.
He was told that while licensing boards could encourage premises to use the additional security measure it was not something which could be required.
The chief inspector said officers were currently working to try and reduce the number of thefts from shops through a special operation aimed at tackling the reasons why people stole.
She said: “We have acquired additional funding and have tried to take a preventative approach by trying to engage with perpetrators of lower level shoplifting.
“Early evidence suggest that the cost of living has been a tributary factor as has poverty so we are trying to make inroads into dealing with the ‘why’ people are doing this offence rather than what we are going to do with them after because as we all know enforcement does not always work for people who are in real need and fall into that vulnerable category.”
She said it was important not to put all incidents under one banner and she hoped the work would see the number of reported incidents fall before the next quarterly report to councillors.
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