Crime soars in England and Wales as police figures reveal 5.2million offences were recorded last year — with VIOLENT incidents up 19 per cent
A STEEP rise in violent crime led to the overall number of annual recorded offences topping five million, it was revealed yesterday.
There was a 13 per cent rise in crime across England and Wales in the 12 months up to the end of June this year, official figures showed.
The number of crimes featuring violence against a person increased by 19 per cent to 1.2million, heaping pressure on the Government who have slashed police budgets leading to the London’s Met giving up trying to solve many low level crimes.
Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbott, said: “The Tories can no longer hide behind claims that crime is falling to justify their severe cuts to the police.
“They have left our communities exposed, with police numbers the lowest on record at a time when forces are under unprecedented pressure from surging crime, an on-going terror threat, and from covering for cuts to other services.”
Homicides showed an underlying rise of 8 per cent with 629 people dying through acts of violence, excluding the 35 people killed during terrorist attacks in London and Manchester this year and the 96 deaths at Hillsborough, which were included for the first time in figures.
There was also an “alarming” rise of 64 per cent in grooming offences against children with a total of 1,771 being recorded.
NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless said: ‘This is an enormous rise in recorded grooming offences over such a short period.
“The fact that records of grooming offences have increased substantially more than most other crimes shows the need for urgent action.
“More young people are speaking up about sexual grooming, and it’s vital that now more than ever police are given the training and the resources to tackle this issue.”
The grim figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the rise in crime is rapidly accelerating with a 5 per cent increase to June 2015, leaping to 7 per over the next 12 months and then almost doubling this year.
John Flatley, head of crime statistics at the ONS, said: “Today’s figures suggest that the police are dealing with a growing volume of crime.
“While improvements made by police forces in recording crime are still a factor in the increase, we judge that there have been genuine increases in crime - particularly in some of the low incidence but more harmful categories.”
The largest increases in violent crime were reported by South Yorkshire police, up 49% to 31,838 offences, Durham was up 48% to 16,532 offences), Greater Manchester rose 46% to 76,404 offences and Northumbria police by 39% to 35,458 offences.
Statistics also revealed that police recorded 36,998 crimes involving a knife or sharp instrument, with London’s Met Police dealing with almost half those offences.
However, ONS statistician Mr Flatley stressed recorded figures do not provide a good measure of all crime as a large volume of it is never reported.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated there were 10.8 million offences, including fraud offences, a nine per cent reduction on the previous year.
AXE FOR PCSOs
A COUNTY constabulary has become the first police force in the country to scrap all its PCSOs.
Norfolk Police says all 150 will lose their jobs in a move away from community policing.
The officers have come in for criticism as “plastic police” in the past with claims of insufficient training.
Norfolk Police said it would save £10million over the next three years. It vowed to plough the savings into 81 new front-line officers and investigation teams with nine detectives and 22 support staff.
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