Third Of Businesses Hit By Crime

Around one third of NI business people have been the victim of crime in the last year.

According to research from the Northern Ireland Policing Board, carried out by KPMG, crimes against businesses are a big problem.

Speaking about the results, Board Chairman Professor Sir Desmond Rea said: "It was important to establish the extent to which business crime affects our community, and to understand the nature of the crimes that occur and to identify opportunities to work together to make Northern Ireland safer to do business," noting that business crime ranges from shoplifting and counterfeiting to extortion and armed robbery.

Some 30% of responding businesses had fallen victim to crime in the past 12 months, the most common crime reported to the police being burglary.

However, while a third of businesses that had been a victim of a crime said that it had no real impact on their business, those who did, said that disrupted trade (48%) and increased security costs (47%) were the most frequent results.

Whilst 85% of victims reported the crime to the police, the research showed that the reasons those who did not report the crime was because they felt there was no chance of catching the criminals (29%) or it would not achieve anything (27%).

Also, while 86% of respondents considered police response times after they reported a crime were always or sometimes reasonable, 38% of respondents considered that the police never kept them informed of developments after they had reported a crime.

The overall report therefore provides 14 recommendations, nine of which are designed to assist the police in dealing with business crime: "These include considering what measures can be taken to encourage businesses to report all crimes to the police; that they should endeavour to provide businesses with progress updates on their investigation and that the PSNI and other relevant agencies should consider providing financial support to businesses to introduce crime prevention measures," said Sir Desmond adding: "Many of these issues are already taking place in the PSNI and are included in the PSNI's recently developed business crime strategy.

"The Board will continue to work in partnership with the police against the criminals and monitor the implementation of the strategy and the recommendations so that business crime is effectively tackled," he concluded.

Meanwhile, PSNI Chief Suptintendent Brian Maguire commented: "The Police Service is committed to tackling Business Crime and has been working in partnership with the business community to develop a Business Crime Strategy.

"The research undertaken by the Board has been used in the development of the Strategy and marks another important step towards putting the criminals out of business. We will now consider the final recommendations of the research and the learning will be used in completing the Police Service's Business Crime Strategy.

"We need the help and support of the business community to make real progress in this important area - partnership working will be the most important tool in tackling business crime."