Police give up on 1million suspects

INVESTIGATIONS into almost a million crimes in which a suspect had been identified were dropped by police last year.

Official figures released yesterday reveal that a record high of 999,263 crimes which had a possible culprit were shelved in 2017 – including more than two-fifths of violent and sexual offence investigations.

Victims’ commissioner Baroness Newlove said: ‘These crimes are not merely statistics. In every case there will be a victim.’

Police blamed a shortage of 5,000 detectives, with one in five roles empty or filled by unqualified staff. They added that the main reasons for cases being dropped were because there was insufficient evidence or because witnesses were unwilling to testify.

The proportion of crimes in England and Wales in which a suspect was identified but police were unable to proceed doubled from 10.6 per cent of the total in 2014 to 21.1 per cent in 2017.

The highest proportion of halted investigations was in Kent, with 41 per cent.

However, a police spokesman said that one in every six crimes in the county was domestic abuse, and that victims often wanted support rather than a prosecution.