Recorded crimes in county soar by 22%

RECORDED crimes soared by 22 per cent last year in Leicestershire, with one crime committed every seven minutes.

The increase in the number of crimes in Leicestershire is one of the sharpest among all police forces across England and Wales, figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed.

In the year ending in September 2017, there were 76,343 recorded crimes, or the equivalent of one crime every seven minutes.

This also works out as 71 crimes for every 1,000 people living in the area.

Violent crimes against a person saw the sharpest increase compared to the year before.

There were 18,985 crimes against a person.

That was a rise of 37 per cent compared to 13,828 crimes recorded the year before.

This corresponds to a rate of 18 crimes for every 1,000 people.

The ONS report suggests that the increase might be related to crime-recording improvements.

The improvements carried on by police forces can make interpreting trends in police recorded offences of violence against a person difficult.

This is because relatively lessserious types of violent crime are violent subjected to judgment about whether or not to record a crime.

There were also 1,848 sexual offences recorded in Leicestershire in the 12 months up to September 2017.

That was an increase of 24 per cent compared to the year before when there were 1,485 recorded crimes.

Robbery crimes have increased by 22 per cent from 626 in the year to September 2016 to 761 in the year to September 2017, a rate of one for every 1,000 people.

Nationally across England and Wales, there were almost 4.7m crimes recorded by police forces in the year ending in September 2017.

This corresponds to a crime every seven seconds or a rate of 80 crimes for every 1,000 people in England and Wales.

That was an increase of 15 per cent compared to the year ending in September 2016 when there were a total of almost 4.1m crimes.

Offences of robbery have increased the most, by 29 per cent, compared to the previous year, with 68,968 crimes recorded in 2016-17 against 53,245 recorded in 2015-16.

Sexual offences have increased by 23 per cent, from 112,021 in 2015-16 to 138,045 in 2016-17, which works out as two crimes for every 1,000 people.

However it has been suggested the rise is down to improved reporting of offences