Lawless Britain: Where are the Police? Channel 4 Dispatches

8 October 2018

Monday 8th October, Channel 4, 8pm

Exclusive Dispatches research uncovers for the first time just how many reported crimes are being dropped with little or no investigation.The most comprehensive analysis to date reveals the levels of reported crimes that many forces are choosing to screen out. This research raises concerns that Britain is now sliding into a new era of policing.

Dispatches have discovered nearly a million crimes are not being investigated fully. Dispatches implemented Freedom of Information requests and received responses from 25 police Forces – nearly 2/3 of all Forces in England and Wales.

With violent attacks and knife crime on the rise along with sex offences, police forces with fewer officers now have to choose which offences to investigate fully. Dispatches found that many offences are logged and reported but never passed to an officer for investigation.

From the responses showing latest available annual figures across England and Wales, over a quarter of crimes, 27% (27.02%), were reported screened out.

Some forces were higher:

• Warwickshire – almost a third (32.89%)
• Bedfordshire – 40% (40.35%) 
• Greater Manchester Police – almost 40% (39.84%)
• West Yorkshire – nearly half (46.53%)
• Met – 29.48% (2016 figure) 
• West Mercia – 31.21%
• Hampshire – 30.68%
• Avon and Somerset 27.93% ‘filed and not allocated to an officer’

West Yorkshire also revealed an “optimum” screen out rate of 56% of all crimes, equivalent to approximately 145,000 offences per year.

Marian Fitzgerald, Visiting Professor of Criminology, University of Kent:

Well it varies from force to force and some of them seem to be more gung-ho about screening out than others, but typically things like theft, criminal damage, vandalism, thefts from cars, interfering with cars. Those sorts of fairly commonplace offences, those are the ones that seem to be screened out fastest.

Burglary:

There around 438,000 burglaries in England and Wales in 2017 – and according to recent analysis only 3% were solved.

Of the 21 Forces who provided comparable data for Burglary, on average 36% (36.42%) was being screened out.

• Sussex – 50% (49.63%)
• Bedfordshire – 57% (57.45%)
• Avon & Somerset – ‘filed’ 29 per cent of burglary ‘without allocating it to an officer’

Even in cases of aggravated burglary in the home – where the intruder is armed – 16% of reports were dropped at an early stage by West Yorkshire.

Tony Nash was a borough commander with the Metropolitan Police,

“The balance now I think has tipped too far the way, in things are being screened out that should be screened in. […] 

”So any crime where there’s CCTV but the coverage may be over 36 hours. It may be screened out because no one is going to look at 36 hours because they’ve put time parameters on the amount of CCTV. […]

“If you can actually spend a little bit of time and identify the offender and deal with that individual then you actually reduce a lot of serious crime. […]

“There needs to be an honest debate. If you look at the funding and the resourcing for the police - there are not enough resources to do everything, and where there are gaps, there is a solution but the solution is that you get private companies in to potentially take over some of those roles that the police are no longer staffed or funded to prioritise.[…]

“I think it’s a growth area, private schooling has been here a long time, private health more recently and now we’re moving into private security.”

Vehicle Crime:

Last year there were more than 450,000 vehicle offences in England and Wales, including both thefts of cars and items from inside them.

Of the 21 Forces who provided comparable data for Vehicle Offences, on average nearly 60% (59.51%) was being screened out.

• West Yorkshire - 81% (80.65%)
• Wiltshire - 72% (71.62%)
• Staffordshire - 64% ‘telephone resolved’ (63.91%)

Martin Innes, criminologist:

“Criminal damage offences and vehicle-related offences are important because they are what criminologists refer to as gateway offences so those are, if you like, the kind of offending that individuals use when they are launching their criminal career.

“That’s the kind of thing where people learn how to commit crime, they learn the lifestyle, they learn the contacts that they need to disperse the stuff that they steal …and we know from pretty good evidence from research that if people engage in these kind of gateway type offences and if they are not caught and intercepted than they are more likely to go on and continue to offend at greater levels and engage in more serious forms of crime.”

Simon Ham had a company van stolen from one of his construction sites; the van was worth £20,000. The theft was caught on CCTV, the registration number was recorded and footage taken of distinctive tattoos on the perpetrator’s arm. Despite providing the police with this information his case was screened out.

Simon: It was really good CCTV, it wasn’t by any means a cold case, there was good leads here, there was good solid evidence. The police have not been proactive on any stage of this. Anything that’s happened has been a result of us pushing it.

Simon never saw a police officer or his transit van again.

West Mercia police told Dispatches, “Victims of crime quite rightly deserve and should expect the highest standard of service from us... On this occasion the investigation fell below this standard and we are now looking to address this.”

Violence and sex offences:

Of the 23 Forces who provided comparable data for Violence Against The Person offences, on average 10 per cent (10.08%) was being screened out.

Warwickshire dropped one in four (26.02%) of all “violence with injury” cases.

Of the 23 Forces who provided comparable data for Sex Offences, on average 3 per cent (3.26%) was being screened out.

In West Yorkshire over 10% (10.58%) of reported sexual offences, including assaults were dropped.

Retail Crime:

Retail crime in the UK is one of those on the rise. It’s now costing shops £700m. Four years ago new legal guidelines were brought in allowing shoplifters to avoid court if they stole goods worth less than £200.

Last year Bedfordshire Police dropped almost 70% (68.30%) of reports of people making off without paying for fuel.

When it comes to theft offences (including shoplifting)

• Sussex screened out 48% (47.72%). 
• Hampshire - 56% (55.87%).

One of those continually out of pocket and disappointed at the police response is Paul Cheema from Coventry. Paul has been working in the family business with its convenience store and petrol forecourt for thirty years.

Paul: Is retail crime really important for the police? I’ve lost nearly £25,000 since February in my business.

Morland: How often is that happening, that someone is filling up the car and then just driving off?

P: On a bad week you can probably get one a day, sometimes twice a day.

M: Every day? Twice a day?

P: We had one last week where someone came up to this lane here, you normally get it on this last lane because you can’t always get that facial recognition, not only are they filling the car but they’re filling up what happens to be a big tank on the back seat. So you could lose up to 60 litres.

M: And you’re talking about, what’s that, eighty quid?

P: Eighty quid a time.

M: What’s the police attitude towards people making off with fuel and not paying for it?

P: I don’t really see a lot of police. Their attitude is fill the form out on the internet and upload the CCTV, that’s their attitude to it. You know, it’s disheartening.

M: Do you think the police are failing you Paul?

P: Well the police as a bigger organisation, yes, I would never blame my local police, I blame the people are the top of the tree that are putting these cuts in.

M: What are the shoplifter’s favourites then?

P: So when you look a section that we do and they’ll come in, and they’ll take all the gammon. So the main goods here are chicken, mince, steak and bacon.

M: I don’t understand why they’re nicking stuff that’s going to go off.

P: Because it’s high value items which can quickly be sold. That could equate to three, four hundred quid.

M: They’re not taking stuff to feed the family?

P: This is shoplifting, this organised. This is a business for these boys,

M: There’s always been crime but why do you think you’ve noticed such an increase in this store recently?

P: These offenders know they’re not going to - nothing is going to happen to them. And they do it to such a value that they don’t even go to court. We’ve even had people come in here and say we’re taking this, do what you want. Phone the police. Why are they saying that? Because they know nothing happens.

These gateway crimes can lead to escalating offences, violent attacks on retail workers have doubled in the last year. And just days before Dispatches spoke to Paul, his shop was once again targeted but this time so were his staff, in an incident which was attended by police.

P: I had £10,500 worth of cigarettes taken off me on Saturday night, £711 worth of cash, Four offenders came into the store, put one of my customers on the floor and pushed my other team member to one side with what looked like a 3 foot iron bar. If that iron bar had hit one of my team members she could have bled to death in minutes.

I then had to say to police why are you not getting forensics here, I even had to pick the iron bar up myself and put it away because the police didn’t take it away with them. And the police still haven't been in for CCTV footage. I feel really let down.”

West Midlands Police said;

“Forensics attended and seized the metal bar from the store along with footprints for analysis” and they later, “…viewed the CCTV footage…” but could not collect it as it had not been downloaded by the store, “The investigation remains on-going”.

Responses from Police Forces:

The Home Office declined an interview with Dispatches.

But the Police and Crime Commissioner for the largest force area in the country did agree to talk. Conservative Julia Mulligan, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire, said:

“The police do a really good job, day in and day out, there is no doubt that there is a lot of pressure on the police service at the moment and it’s not just because there’s been reductions in budget, its because the nature of crime is changing.

So there is a lot more stuff going on in the internet that is, you know, putting a huge amount of harm onto people, onto children in our communities and the police have to have all of the resources they need to deal with that. […]

“So the cuts that have been made, I think are having consequences. So I am concerned about the resources for policing in this country and we are having a discussion with Government around how we manage that.”

And speaking about another Force’s target to screen out 56% of crime, she said:

“Well I don’t know what Force that is but that will be really concerning. I think some screening out is needed but that doesn’t mean to say that that should be a target and it should be applied across the board.”

West Yorkshire police deny 57% is a target for screening out but an, “optimum ‘screen out’ rate…of crime” based on a “…risk assessment model, proportionality & solvability factors..” and that, “all crime gets a primary investigation either by a police officer attending in person, or over the telephone”.

LAWLESS BRITAIN: WHERE ARE THE POLICE?: CHANNEL 4 DISPATCHES Monday 8th October, Channel 4, 8pm

Director: Claire Burnett

Reporter: Morland Sanders

Executive Producer: George Waldrum

Production Co: ITN Productions

 

ENDS