Only five per cent of burglaries are solved by police

BRITAIN’S LARGEST police force has said it is “doing all it can” to bring thieves to justice after figures suggested less than five per cent of burglaries and robberies across the country are being solved.

The Metropolitan Police said it was putting a “huge amount of effort” into tackling a rise in moped-related crime, which it said had reduced.

Scotland Yard said burglary presents “particular challenges” in finding culprits; however, the force has accepted more work needs to be done to tackle such crimes.

There are fears over a wave of criminality in parts of the country, with moped thefts attracting particular concerns following a number of high-profile incidents.

Scotland Yard said sanction detection rates, the way it measures cases that are solved, were 5.5 per cent for burglary and seven per cent for robbery between April 2017 and April 2018.

That compared to an overall rate of 13.2 per cent for all offences included in the statistics.

“Solving crime is a key priority for the Met and we are committed to doing all we can to cut crime, pursue offenders and support victims to make London even safer,” a force spokeswoman said.

“Burglary presents particular challenges in regard to identifying those responsible and we accept there is more work to be done – and are always seeking ways to increase the number of these crimes we solve.

“A number of robbery offences can be attributed to scooterrelated crime. The Met has been putting a huge amount of effort into stemming the rise in these offences and bringing offenders to justice.” According to

national police data shows the proportion of suspects who are caught and punished for all crimes has more than halved to nine per cent over the past five years.

The figures also suggested only four per cent of robberies were solved in England and Wales in 2017, while it was nine per cent in 2013.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s spokesman on crime recording and statistics, Chief Constable Bill Skelly, said there had been improvements in how police record their crimes.