Damaged goods outside the JD Sports store in the Tottenham Hale retail park, north London

Retailer JD Sports Fashion today revealed that £700,000 of stock was looted in last month’s riots while one of its London stores has yet to reopen after suffering fire damage.

A total of 16 stores were hit by the disorder, with six in London suffering “very significant thefts”.

Its losses would have been worse if not for the pre-emptive measures it took to stop looters gaining access to its stores, it said.

A JD store in Woolwich, south-east London, is still closed as fire damage is repaired but the rest of the stores were reopened by August 21.

Despite the effect of the riots and store closures, the chain said like-for-like sales excluding VAT increased by 1.6 per cent in seven weeks to September 17, underscoring its credentials as one of the top performing retailers.

However, it also revealed that underlying pre-tax profits declined 17 per cent to £16 million in the half year to July 30 as its margins were squeezed by the impact of faltering consumer confidence and the increase in VAT.