Why are police more concerned about Israeli ‘war crimes’ than they are about solving a burglary in St Albans?

SOME people may have noticed the happy guidance released between Christmas and New Year by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. This instruction to police in England and Wales was that officers ought to try to go to properties that have been burgled. Even better, they should try to do so within an hour of the burglary being reported.

This seems to me to be an eminently sensible piece of advice. After all, if you get to the scene of a robbery within an hour, you might be able to track down the stolen goods and log evidence while the crime scene is fresh, or even – imagine – find a burglar.

You might wonder why this guidance needed to be given in the first place. After all, there are nearly 1,000 break-ins every day in this country.

In England and Wales, three-quarters of home break-ins lead to no suspect being identified. And Home Office figures suggest the reality may be even worse. According to this data, someone is charged in less than four per cent of cases – which means the percentage who are actually convicted and go to prison for any time is considerably lower than four per cent.

When I first encountered this, I must admit that I started wondering why I chose to make a living as a writer. If I had chosen instead to make burglary my profession then the odds would be overwhelmingly on my side.

If I decided to break into someone’s house and make off with their best cutlery, I’d have a 96 per cent chance of not being caught – which is easier than a normal day’s work. And I could do with some new cutlery. Doubtless a number of people more criminally inclined than me have come to a similar view of these odds.

When you realise that the police take so little interest in home breakins, you might wonder what they spend their time doing. And I have one answer.

Because if you arrive into Heathrow Terminal 5 these days, you might notice a rather surprising sign put up by the British police. The notice is addressed to ‘travellers who have been in Israel/Palestinian Territories’ and says that if you have been in these areas and ‘have witnessed or been a victim of terrorism, war crimes or crimes against humanity, then you can report this to the UK police’.

The notice goes on to say that the UK police are supporting ‘the work of the International Criminal Court, which is investigating alleged war crimes in Israel and Palestine from June 2014 onwards’.

Much about the intention of this notice can be discerned from the language. For better or for worse, there is no country called ‘Palestine’. There is the disputed territory of the West Bank and there is Gaza, which was handed over to the Palestinians in 2005 and which promptly became a terror state. But, as all sides in the conflict agree, there is no such state as Palestine.

The language of the appeal also rather strongly suggests that the British police are interested in Israeli ‘war crimes’ rather than the terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their ilk.

In fact, I have a very strong urge to call the hotline in question and say that I have in fact seen a whole heap of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by these groups, more than I would ever wish to. But I don’t know what the British police would then propose to do about it.

Nor does Boris Johnson who, as a former Mayor of London, was once responsible for the Met. ‘This sounds like a worrying politicisation of the Met Police,’ he said on Thursday, ‘especially after Met officers were seen tearing down posters of Israeli hostages in Gaza.’ Indeed they were, and given the light touch with which they ‘policed’ the so-called pro-Palestinian marches last year, it’s a wonder their Heathrow notice wasn’t more overtly anti-Israeli.

Johnson added: ‘When I was Mayor I made it clear that we would not import foreign wars or disputes on to the streets of London. The Met would be better off fighting knife crime.’

The British police and security services aren’t even able to move against Hamas leaders who live in the UK. Perhaps that is why the appeal for war crime witnesses does not ask if travellers who have recently been in Israel or Gaza have seen any activity connected to the banned terrorist organisation Hamas.

Because that would pose a problem, wouldn’t it? It would suggest that while the British police cannot seem to act against Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the UK, they are right-up for going hard on them a couple of thousand miles away.

This strikes me as unlikely. After all, if the British police have to be reminded that they really ought to turn up to the scene of a robbery in England, the likelihood that they will be able to pursue Hamas into Gaza seems remote.

I read the other day of a woman in Hertfordshire whose house was recently broken into. Sharon Allen has the misfortune to live in a county with one of the worst burglary-conviction rates in the UK.

There is a good reason why: in St Albans (a sizeable enough place of 148,000 souls) there has been no police station in operation since 2015. Ms Allen was reduced to using the CCTV footage of the crime to do her own detective work and try to find the identifiable figure caught on camera breaking into her home.

It’s all a bit Miss Marple or Rosemary & Thyme, for aficionados of the cosy mystery genre. The difference is that such series generally rely on a few good women having to supersede some bumbling detectives. But at least there were detectives. The idea that the land is completely devoid of the fuzz would make these mysteries somewhat darker than usual.

For vast tracts of the country, that is no longer the case. The British police seem to have long ago decided to police everything except crime, and now they would have us believe that their scope for catching criminals extends not to the common burglar but to the uncommon war criminal. Specifically, Israeli war criminals.

Having seen many sights of the current conflict, I can pretty firmly say that war crimes were committed on October 7, 2023 – when Hamas and others chose the softest civilian targets imaginable to carry out their massacre. But I suspect this is out of the scope of the UK constabulary. So why the signs?

The term ‘virtue-signalling’ doesn’t quite cover it. ‘Eunuchsignalling’ might sum it up better. And if you doubt that, call the hotline and report on Hamas and you’ll find a response time that would make the police in St Albans blush.

If I broke into a house, the odds would be overwhelmingly on my side

Officers would have us believe their scope extends to catching war criminals

The term eunuchsignalling might sum this up best

This article first appeared in The Spectator.