No charges brought in 3 out of 4 burglaries

Up to 190,000 families whose homes have been broken into and ransacked have never received justice (Wavebreakmedia)

A Sunday Post probe has revealed just 60,000 of the 250,000 burglaries that have been investigated resulted in criminal proceedings.

It means up to 190,000 families whose homes have been broken into and ransacked have never received justice.

Opposition politicians last night called for more action to bring housebreakers to book.

Tory MSP Alex Johnstone said: “Having your house broken into is a miserable and quite often chilling experience and we need much more effort going into catching burglars.

“We also need to see tougher sentences when the cases arrive in court.

“If Police Scotland took housebreaking half as seriously as the public, we might see statistics start to improve.”

The Sunday Post obtained stats showing the number of housebreaking charges for each of the Procurator Fiscal’s offices across Scotland in the last 10 years.

We compared the data with separate Scottish Government figures for housebreaking crimes over the same period.

They revealed of the 250,245 housebreakings recorded as crime, charges followed in just 60,587 cases.

The highest number of charges were in Edinburgh where criminal proceedings were launched in 12,340 cases.

Next on the list was Glasgow, with 7,629, followed by Aberdeen (3,642), Hamilton (3,526) and Kirkcaldy (3,138).

Labour’s justice spokesman, Graeme Pearson, said police might be reluctant to undertake expensive forensic investigations to catch burglars.

The former police officer said housebreaking crimes had been notoriously difficult to solve as often there were no witnesses.

He described as “disappointing” the police’s failure to combat housebreaking, given overall crime is at a near 40-year low.

Mr Pearson said: “When you have far fewer crimes, you would have thought the police would have more time to dedicate to investigation and get these crimes resolved.”

Last June, we launched the Safe In Our Houses campaign calling for a more effective crackdown on housebreaking.

Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Kate Thomson said tacking the crime was “a priority” for the force.

She said: “Housebreaking is intrusive and distressing.

“Tackling it is a priority for the police and communities.

“We professionally investigate all reports of housebreaking in an effort to bring offenders to justice.

“We also use and encourage many different prevention tactics to stop housebreakings happening in the first place.

“Where housebreaking has been identified as a local issue, specialist national resources are available to support local officers and communities, a combined approach which has been successful in areas across Scotland.”

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