Five men have been arrested and charged following an alleged raid on a Perthshire shop.
The men were all charged in the early hours of Monday morning after interviews lasting several hours. They are expected to appear at Perth Sheriff Court on Wednesday.
It is alleged that the grocery store in Meigle was targeted by a gang of men at around 3pm on Sunday. There was widespread shock in the village following the incident and locals spoke of “intense police activity” around the Spar shop that afternoon.
Nobody was injured and The Courier understands no weapons were used. It is alleged that “a small sum of cash” was taken from the shop.
The men arrested are aged between 17 and 48. Two are reportedly local to the Perthshire area, while the others hail from the west coast of Scotland.
Staff at the Spar declined to comment on the allegations, saying only that a police investigation was “ongoing.”
Meanwhile detectives confirmed five men had been apprehended. A spokesman added that the arrests came as part of inquiries into a theft in Meigle but declined to make any further comment.
Police had earlier issued an appeal for witnesses to an “incident” in the village.
Locals spoke of their shock following the allegations.
“Nobody quite knows what has happened yet, but it was all pretty dramatic,” one said. “You read about things like this happening elsewhere, but it is certainly not the kind of thing that usually goes on in a village like this.
“There was a heavy police presence around the shop on Sunday afternoon, which was unusual to say the least, so it was pretty apparent something untoward was going on.”
Locals described the village as being “tight-knit” and said trouble was rare.
Another resident added, “It is pretty shocking to think that something like this could have happened locally.”