Police take 28 hours to attend burglaries

POLICE forces in some areas are taking up to 28 hours to attend burglaries, official figures show.

Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal that three forces are averaging more than 20 hours before officers arrive at the scene of a burglary. The longest waits by victims are in Northamptonshire, where the average burglary response time is 28 hours, followed by Durham at 25 hours and 46 minutes, and Devon and Cornwall at 22 hours and 11 minutes, according to the data obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

The highest performing force, Bedfordshire, attended burglaries within 15 minutes. Overall, the 26 forces that provided figures averaged nine hours and eight minutes before officers arrived at the scene of a burglary in 2022-23, double the time in 2020-21 when the average was four hours and 53 minutes.

The waits follow a pledge in October 2022 by all 43 police force chiefs to attend every domestic burglary regardless of location and what had been stolen. However, The Telegraph revealed last month how police have failed to solve a single burglary in nearly half (48 per cent) of all England and Wales neighbourhoods in the past three years.

Dept Chief Constable Alex Franklin-smith, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for burglary, said the pledge to attend every residential burglary was “one important step” in seeking to improve detection rates.

He said: “Not every burglary report is the same and like every effective emergency service, police control rooms across England and Wales must assess the threat, harm and risk associated with every call they receive to ensure attendance is effectively prioritised.”