Criminals using confessions to stay out of court

VIOLENT thugs, sex offenders and drug traffickers are among thousands of criminals who have escaped prosecution after confessing to serious crimes.

Police have used out-ofcourt disposals – which include warnings, cautions and community resolutions – to deal with serious offences including sex assaults, violence with injury and possession of weapons.

A smaller number of rapes, robberies and arsons were also dealt with by outof-court disposals, according to a Daily Telegraph analysis of official police force data from 2016 to 2019.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council and Ministry of Justice say community resolutions and out-of-court disposals should not normally be used for serious offences and instead only be used for low-level, often firsttime offending.

The figures show out-ofcourt disposals have fallen from 263,000 to 208,000 since 2015 when the Commons home affairs committee said it was “alarmed” at their use for serious crimes.

Evidence from scrutiny panels, which review police forces’ decisions to use outof-court disposals, show that between 15 per cent and a third are still being used “inappropriately”.

According to the data, more than one in 10 (10.9 per cent) of all possession of weapons or knife offences in 2018/19 were dealt with by out-of-court disposals.

The figure was one in 20 (5 per cent) in violent offences where the victim was injured, and one in 10 (10.8 per cent) for drug trafficking. Almost 1,500 sex offences (1.5 per cent) were dealt with through out-of-court disposals, which were also used for 32 rapes, 287 robberies and 443 cases of arson.

Ann Coffey, an MP who has campaigned on rape, said: “Out-of-court disposals deny victims a voice and send out completely the wrong message about the seriousness of rape.”