Supermarket staff need protection to curtail tiger robberies

Ulster Unionist Assembly member for Fermanagh & South Tyrone, Tom Elliott MLA has called on the PSNI to offer advice and protection to supermarket staff who handle the banking arrangements after the latest "tiger robbery" which occurred in Coalisland recently.

Tom said: "This is the latest in a long line of such robberies where staff has had family members abducted and large sums of money stolen from their premises. We had the incident at Sprucefield where thousands of pounds were obtained by criminals and is now spreading to every district in Northern Ireland, Strabane, and Londonderry and now in Coalisland."

"This is a most frightening experience for families affected and all steps should be put in place to offer advice and protection of staff by PSNI to curtail such incidents, otherwise the number of incidents will spiral out of control. I fear as we approach the busiest trading period of the year when large sums of monies are secured in premises that unscrupulous individuals will carry out further robberies. It is important that those responsible are quickly caught and brought before the courts and send out a clear message that they will be caught, rather than an impression that these criminals are getting away with it. In most cases, no premises should have one person in charge of the only key to open a safe, in that it should always be at least two/three key holders."