JUST 1 IN 10 CRIMES LEADS TO A CHARGE

Police failure to crack cases sees thousands cheat justice... and detection rate plunges

POLICE charged a suspect in just one in every ten reported crimes last year, shocking figures revealed last night.

Hundreds of thousands of criminals – including rapists, thugs, burglars and thieves – are escaping justice.

Of the 4.6 million known offences, investigators closed almost half without even identifying a possible culprit.

The proportion of crimes that resulted in someone being charged fell from 15 per cent just three years ago to 9 per cent this year.

The shameful statistics highlight how taxpayers are enduring a record crime wave as police solve far fewer cases. As police chiefs faced questions about whether they have lost control of the streets, it was revealed that:

Officers failed to identify a suspect in more than 250,000 extra offences over the past year than the previous 12 months;

Just 443,000 crimes resulted in someone being ordered to attend court over the past year, the lowest number since 2015;

In rape cases just 3 per cent of complaints led to someone being charged.

A Home Office report, quietly slipped out during a blizzard of crime statistics yesterday, laid bare gross failings by police forces across England and Wales.

It revealed the number of crimes that result in a charge fell to 9 per cent of the total number of recorded crimes, equivalent to an annual reduction of 41,215 crimes. Separately, almost half (48 per cent) of investigations were closed without a suspect being identified, a similar proportion to the previous year.

These included 75 per cent of thefts and 57 per cent of robberies.

Senior officers blame the changing ‘mix’ of crime as they face increasingly complex sexual and fraud offences. Experts said a higher proportion of recorded crimes were in the most ‘challenging’ categories to investigate.

Officials said sexual offences, up a quarter year on year, carried a higher workload and were often more complicated to solve. Rape cases take an average of 129 days to solve – compared with, for example, two days for theft or criminal damage.

The new figures come after a Daily Mail poll published this week found that 57 per cent of people think police have surrendered control of neighbourhoods and criminals have no fear of being caught.

Criminologist Dr David Green, director of the Civitas think-tank, accused police and politicians of ‘ soft pedalling’ the scale of the threat, adding: ‘Very little attention has been paid to the fact that at a time of rising crime, police are becoming less effective at catching criminals. Is it because of police numbers or their methods?

‘We are told that police are becoming more efficient. I think that is empty rhetoric.’

Rory Geoghegan, of the Centre for Social Justice, said the Government can do more to ‘help prevent and detect’ crime. He called for police to start comparing the movements of known offenders wearing GPS tags against recorded crimes, a practice common overseas.

Lincolnshire Police Chief Constable Bill Skelly, who has national responsibility for crime statistics, said: ‘There are a range of factors affecting detection rates.

‘Firstly police forces are improving the way they record crime, including crimes that have no suspect and little prospect of a criminal justice outcome. There are also significant rises in cases that are complex to investigate such as child sexual exploitation, abuse and online fraud.’

There was a time when the Tories considered themselves the party of law and order. But with crime spiralling out of control – according to official figures – and spreading from the cities to shire counties, that claim is looking increasingly thin.

robbery up 30 per cent… Knife crime up 16 per cent… Burglary and car break-ins also rising sharply.... It’s no wonder, as the Mail’s poll revealed on Monday, that six in ten think the police have lost control.

Yes, budgets have been cut. But while some forces have prioritised beat bobbies, others have wasted fortunes on politically correct causes and historic sex offences.

A more likely explanation for the rise is that criminals are emboldened by the abject failure of forces to bring them to heel.

Indeed, the most disturbing figure showed that in nine crimes out of ten no- one is charged. This detection rate has plummeted by one-third in just three years.

In half of all cases investigators failed even to identify a suspect. The detection rate for rape – just three in 100 – should be a cause of national shame.

And what message does this appalling failure of the justice system send to the criminal classes – the moped thugs, machetewielding muggers and house burglars who appear on the pages of the Mail week after week? Keep calm and carry on.