Third of crimes in Bristol area not recorded

A third of crimes in Avon and Somerset are not being recorded by police, according to a report by a watchdog.

An HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report revealed the results of a national survey of 8,000 crime incidents reported.

More than 800,000 – or one in five – of all reported crimes went unrecorded each year, it estimated.

But in the region here, about a third of all crimes were not recorded during an 11-month period between November 2012 and October 2013. Of 134 crime reports in the survey in the Avon and Somerset area which should have been recorded as crimes, only 90 were recorded as such.

Nationally, the problem is greatest for victims of violence against the person and sexual offences, where the under-recording rates are 33 per cent and 26 per cent respectively.

The report authors said: “This failure to record such a significant proportion of reported crime is wholly unacceptable.”

Even when crimes were correctly recorded, too many are removed or cancelled as recorded crimes for no good reason. Of the 3,246 decisions to cancel, or no-crime, a crime record that we reviewed, 664 were incorrect. These included over 200 rapes and more than 250 crimes of violence against the person.

In Avon and Somerset, 32 per cent of these no-crime decisions were deemed to be “incorrect”.

“Offenders who should be being pursued by the police for these crimes are not being brought to justice and their victims are denied services to which they are entitled,” the report said.

Police and crime commissioner Sue Mountstevens said an investigation would be carried out. Home Secretary Theresa May described the findings as “utterly unacceptable”.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor said: “The first duty of the police is to protect the public and reduce crime. A national crime-recording rate of 81 per cent is inexcusably poor. Failure properly to record crime is indefensible. This is not about numbers and dry statistics; it’s about victims and the protection of the public.

“The position in the case of rape and other sexual offences is a matter of especially serious concern. The inspection found 37 cases of rape which were not recorded as crimes. The national rate of under-recording of sexual offences (including rapes) as crimes was 26 per cent, and the national rate of incorrect decisions to no-crime rapes was 20 per cent. These are wholly unacceptable failings.

“Some forces have exemplary records in this respect, and some others are very bad. It is particularly important that in cases as serious as rape, these shortcomings are put right as a matter of the greatest urgency. In some forces, action is already being taken in this respect.

“The police should immediately institutionalise the presumption that the victim is to be believed. If evidence later comes to light which shows that no crime occurred, then the record should be corrected; that is how the system is supposed to work.

“Victims need and are entitled to support and assistance. They – and their communities – are entitled to justice. Failures in crime-recording can also increase the risks to victims and the community of the denial of justice. The police therefore need to take this subject very seriously.

“Trust in what the police tell people about crime is part of the essential trust which the public must have in the police.”

The report comes a month after it emerged the number of violent crimes increased sharply across the Avon and Somerset area in the last year.

The latest crime statistics from the Office for National Statistics showed, overall, the number of crimes in the region dropped very slightly, while burglaries and vehicle offences fell sharply. 

But in the year to June 2014, there were 17,912 reports of violence against the person – up from 15,895 in the year to June 2013.

Most marked was the rise in sexual offences, with 1,908 recorded – a rise of nearly 25 per cent.

This rise reflected a national trend, with the overall number of rapes reported and recorded by police in England and Wales at the highest level ever.