Car Thefts Increase, but the Police are not Investigating

By Peter Dodd

Partner

Public confidence in the police appears to continue to slide. They were described in 2018 of being at risk of becoming irrelevant.

Conviction rates of serious sexual assaults remain low, forces have been accused of not investigating burglaries and the RAC have reported that police forces across England and Wales are only investigating less than one in four car thefts. The overall situation is dire.

What is even more worrying is that if the general public have no confidence in the police are all crimes being reported? Car thefts are up a third but only 23% are investigated. I have many phone calls from clients when complaints are made as to criminal activity. They are often advised to either dial 101 or email the police to obtain a crime reference number. Little is then often done.

If there is a burglary or if there is car theft then insurance companies insist on having an incident number (as this is the reportable crime method). If this is done the insurance company can then deal with a claim. What is a worry is that the police think this is the norm. Has it been forgotten that the police are there to investigate crimes not just log them? Judging by these statistics things are not looking good.

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