Police should focus on violent crime, says Met Chief

Britain’s top police officer has backed a drive to focus on violent offenders rather than recording incidents of misogyny that are not crimes.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said “stretched” forces must prioritise violent crimes, including drug gangs fighting turf wars on the streets of towns and cities across the country.

She indicated that other of- fences, including online fraud, were lower priorities for her officers.

She backed National Police Chiefs’ Council chairwoman Sara Thornton, who warned that forces could not take on all “desirable and deserving” issues, such as logging misogyny reports even when no offence has been committed.

There have been calls for misogyny to be treated as a hate crime and the Government has commissioned a review to examine whether laws should be extended to cover offences motivated by hostility towards a victim’s sex or age.

Ms Dick said: “My officers are very busy, they are very stretched. We have young people in London subject to stabbings and other serious violence, getting involved in drug gangs and things, lots of priorities. We can’t go on increasing the scale of the mission through enforcing new laws unless we are given more resources or the public are prepared for us to just do some things not as well.”

She gave the example of a group of 16-year-old girls being subjected to wolf-whistles and calls while walking past a building site.