Police investigating the first crime of the isle of Canna in decades have a new lead.
Officers will interview seven sea kayakers and a crew of fishermen in a new effort to solve the case.
Hundreds of pounds worth of goods – including biscuits, coffee, sweets and woolly hats – were stolen from the island’s two tiny shops last weekend.
Just 26 people live on the island, but one fishing boat and 17 yachts were moored there on the night of the theft on Friday, June 12.
It has now emerged police will question members of the Eastwood and East Kilbride Canoe Club and the crew of the Nordic Way, a Barra-based fishing boat, in relation to the theft.
The island shops operate on an “honesty box” system, meaning that shoppers write what they have taken and leave the appropriate amount of cash.
But thieves failed to leave any money at all when they took a variety of items from the island’s two shops last Friday night.
Thieves took six woolly hats, sweets, biscuits, batteries, bath oils and shower gel from the two shops.
It is the first recorded crime on Canna since the 1960s.
On Saturday, club members Stuart Clark, 66, and Steve Bell, 50, confirmed that their party was on the island when the crime took place but there was “absolutely no way” they were involved.
Mr Clark said: “I bought items from Julie’s shop, as a way of helping to support the community.
“It’s shocking what has happened and we hope the culprits are caught.”
The crew of the Nordic Way have been at sea, fishing in the Atlantic, since leaving the island on 12 June, and it is understood that police will question them when they return to port.