AT first I thought he'd taken it pretty well, for a 76-year-old widower rattling around the house most days and nights on his own.

The phone rang maybe 10 minutes after he left my house and I was there in five.

Whoever had broken in was, I suppose, professional, which meant the place was surprisingly neat and tidy for which we were grateful.

No vandalism, graffitior worse.

Though quite how they (we figure there was an accomplice) managed to smash the tiny kitchen fanlight and squeeze through without neighbours hearing a sound is beyond us.

The downstairs rooms were untouched. Upstairs the missing computer monitor, portable TV, video camera and other bits and pieces of easily transported household electronics were missing.

Drawers had been pulled and their contents strewn around. He'll never know what all was taken.

The thief showed remarkable restraint though: my grandfather's First World War medals, more valuable to us than money, were still in their cracked leather pouch, disturbed, looked at, maybe even admired, but thankfully left behind.

Needless to say, the police, when they eventually turned up, told him to leave well alone until the forensics people had called.

So he sat alone in an empty house, unable to clear the mess or tidy up until the next day.

Touch nothing', they said. So he didn't.

Much good it did anyway. The thief was a pro who knew how to wear gloves and not pull them on with his teeth. No DNA, you see.

My father seemed to take it all in his stride and didn't appear upset. He was, after all, well insured and his possessions will, in time, be replaced.

It was only later I realised he had been robbed of something far more valuable: confidence.

He doesn't go out at night much anymore.

When he does, I have to drive because he wants the house to look occupied; car in the driveway, lights left on, that kind of thing.

And I confess to a lump in my throat when, a few days ago, he asked my advice on buying a CCTV and alarm system.

Seventy-six-years-old and he has to worry about security When all's said and done, my father is just a statistic: an unsolved crime that won't even make a footnote on Chief Constable Willie Rae's next annual report which, in the way of all official handouts these days, has to be positive and upbeat.

Researchers who compiled the European Crime and Safety Survey don't care about political niceties or glowing official reports. They just went out in 2004 and asked 40,000 people across the continent about their experiences.

The result? Britain is top of the break-in league and second only to Ireland for the percentage of people exposed to crime.

Home Office minister Tony McNulty dismissed the finding as being three years out of date' - as though things have got better in that time.

Maybe he, and all the other Scots politicians gearing up for the May election would like to meet my dadbut I doubt it.