Claire Hu looks into the appointment of Brighton and Hove's new 'crime tsar', Terry Davies who has been charged with tackling retail crime.

Terry Davies is a man with a mission - to make life hard for thieves, fraudsters and bullies in Brighton.

Mr Davies has been appointed on behalf of the retail industry with the aim of making the city centre a safer place to live and work.

The Retail Crime Initiative, the City Centre Business Forum and Sussex Police are paying for the new position of retail crime collator.

The aim is to cut crime in stores by 15 per cent during the next year.

To measure crime trends, the tsar will build up intelligence about every incident, from shoplifting to physical attacks, in ten major shops.

His role will be to use the information to target resources and come up with ideas to stop the criminals.

Business owners know shoppers spend more when they feel comfortable and safe, one of the reasons the job has been created.

He will be working for the the City Centre Business Forum, a group of key and smaller retailers.

Mr Davies, a softly-spoken, unassuming character with a dry sense of humour, was a manager for Marks & Spencer for 24 years, including the branch in Western Road, Brighton, before retiring and his years of retail experience make him the ideal candidate.

Mr Davies said: "It's all right for us to moan about the lack of police but it's better for us to say, 'What can we do?'

"I'm going to make it very difficult for people to defraud our shops.

"It is not only the shops that suffer if someone shoplifts - it's the shareholders or it could be the staff because their companies can't afford to pay them more and, at the end of the day, it will be the customers because the cost will be added to the price of the goods."

One of his first missions is to set up safe havens for children in difficulties, for example, youngsters being bullied or chased by mobile phone robbers.

Shops taking part in the scheme will display safe haven signs and staff will be trained in how to deal with emergencies.

Mr Davies said: "What we are experiencing in Brighton is bullying towards minors by other minors.

"There is a real problem with school children mugging other children for their mobile phones. I am sure many of the safe havens will also be able to help elderly people in difficulties."

Violent crime has soared in Sussex, with the county coming fifth in a league table of 43 police forces around the country. Robberies increased by more than a third in the year up to September 2000.

Superintendent Peter Coll, of Brighton division, said: "We welcome any initiative that makes people feel safer in the city centre."

He said: "I think one of the biggest problems in Brighton is dealing with people who are shoplifting to fund addictions, be they drink or drugs. We do have a particular problem because catching them does not seem to deter them."

With research showing Brighton has the highest number of drug-related deaths in England and Wales, a £55,000 campaign funded by the Government aims to warn teenagers in the city about the risks.

Mr Davies will be in charge of an exclusion order scheme, which will ban professional thieves from the city centre. Offenders identified in collaboration with stores and the police will be served with a notice barring them from entering 126 stores and photographs of them will be circulated to shop owners.

Eight exclusion orders have so far been handed out and Mr Davies will liaise with businesses about how the project is working and whether those blacklisted should be given a trial reprieve or if more notices need to be served.

He said: "We are talking about people who hang around waiting for two hours for a security guard to go for lunch. They are professionals, not an old lady who walks out of a shop forgetting to pay."

The crime tsar hopes to increase membership of the Retail Crime Initiative and offer support to areas such as Hove and St James's Street.