Fewer burglaries but area is one of worst for armed raiders

WITH many holidays being cancelled and far fewer people heading off to work each day, last year’s lockdown saw a big drop in domestic burglaries.

Leicestershire Police said they received 3,666 reports of burglaries and attempted burglaries in the whole of 2020 - down by 31 per cent from the year before, when there were 5,304.

That included 193 aggravated burglaries - burglaries involving threats or weapons - which was down about 22 per cent from 249 in 2019.

But despite a drop compared to other places, the Leicestershire force area’s aggravated burglaries figure was one of the highest rates in the country. Only burglars in Derbyshire were more likely to be armed during a break-in.

Aggravated burglaries in the county included one in July 2020, in which a family in Kingston Avenue, Wigston, was threatened by a gang of four men armed with meat cleavers, who wrongly thought they were raiding a cannabis factory.

The burglars threatened to chop their limbs off and deliberately burnt one male with scorching water from a kettle.

A female victim had her necklace ripped off and feared she was going to be sexually assaulted, Leicester Crown Court was told.

One of the burglars, Barrington McBean, 52, slipped over on the floor - wet from the scalding water - and was detained by the householders until the police arrived. A burglar who got away, Sandeep Singh, 39, called the police to say what happened and claimed he had been coerced into taking part.

McBean, of Baildon Street, Lewisham, London, admitted aggravated burglary with bladed articles and was jailed for nine years and told he will have to serve two-thirds of the sentence.

Singh, a married father, of Wicket Close, Loughborough, admitted a lesser offence of burglary, without aggravation and was given an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for two years with 200 hours of unpaid work.

LOCKDOWN HAS MEANT DROP IN HOUSE RAIDS, BUT ONLY DERBY HAS BURGLARS MORE LIKELY TO BE ARMED

Burglary can rob victims not only of their possessions but also their sense of safety and security Alex Mayes

The statistics from Leicestershire Police show that, out of the whole of Leicestershire and Rutland, the city had the most break-ins during 2020 1,637 reported burglaries and attempted burglaries.

That works out as 153 offences for every 10,000 homes in Leicester.

The second worst proportionately was Charnwood with 96 reported offences for every 10,000 houses, then Oadby and Wigston at 83 and Blaby at 66.

Melton had a rate of just 50 reports per 10,000 homes, while Rutland was even lower at 29.

Compared to the national average, the drop in burglaries in Leicestershire was even bigger than elsewhere, with 31 per cent in the Leicestershire Police area comparing with 22 per cent across the UK.

And nationally, during the pandemic, there was a 7 per cent rise in aggravated burglaries.

Alex Mayes, external affairs manager at independent charity Victim Support, said: “As a charity that works with thousands of victims of burglary every year, we know that it can have a long lasting impact on those who experience it.

“Even during the pandemic, when many were at home and there were fewer opportunities for burglars, we reached out to over 35,000 who had experienced this crime.

“It’s particularly concerning to see a rise in aggravated burglaries, which can put victims at increased risk, especially as so many more of us have been homebound than usual.

“Home is the place where people should feel most safe, and burglary can rob victims not only of their possessions but also their sense of safety and security.”