Police Demand
Around 700 prisoners are being released early from prisons in England and Wales under new measures aimed at preventing the prison estate reaching capacity, with about 4,500 inmates expected to be eligible overall. Those released will remain subject to monitoring, including electronic tagging, amid concerns from victims and questions over the additional pressure on the Probation Service
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Police Demand
Hundreds of prisoners across England and Wales are being released early today under a new scheme designed to free up prison space
Offenders serving sentences of up to 19 months are now eligible for release after a third of their term - here's a quick look at how the scheme will work
David, who was released from HMP Brixton this morning, says he doesn't believe the new scheme will work because of a lack of support on the outside. "It's help I need," he says
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Police Demand
Railway crimes in the North West cost taxpayers £7.8m last year, with trespassing accounting for nearly £6m of that total, Network Rail said.
It said trespassing was not only "extremely dangerous" but also one of the biggest contributors to delays for passenger and freight services.
Last year, trespass incidents across the region caused 141,000 minutes of delays to individual train services, the equivalent of more than three months of delayed trains, the operator said.
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Technology
Lisa Nandy has warned technology firms that the government’s online safety crackdown is not finished, saying that banning under-16s from social media platforms is only a “staging post”.
Earlier this year the government announced that teenagers under the age of 16 would be banned from accessing “high-risk” social media apps, while safer platforms would be subjected to restrictions.
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Recruitment and Retention
Lincolnshire Police says a record number of officers will join the force this year, with PCSO and neighbourhood teams also being strengthened.
The force had paused recruitment and left vacancies unfilled to manage budget pressures, amid the possibility of up to 400 job cuts.
However, earlier this year the government agreed an additional £12m in funding over the next three years and the force has since confirmed staff numbers are rising again.
Police and crime commissioner Marc Jones said the force had already recruited a record 127 warranted officers, "through traditional training, transfers, and 20 direct entry detectives".
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Economy & Public Finance
Speaking at the Labour Party conference, the Chancellor John Healey has committed to putting fiscal discipline at the core of next month's Budget while also setting out measures to support jobs and growth.
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Police and Crime General
The new boss of West Midlands Police has been appointed, after saying he would not be guided by politics, religion or activists.
Scott Green had been serving as acting chief constable since January after the former Chief Constable Craig Guildford left amid controversy over Israeli football fans being banned from attending a match in Birmingham.
Green had already been named as the preferred candidate by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), external.
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Technology
Scotland Yard has suspended the use of specialist software to hack telephones after US prosecutors claimed it was secretly developed in Russia by a company with links to Moscow’s spy agency.
The Metropolitan Police, which leads police investigations on espionage and terrorism cases, is carrying out a “full review” of the use of the software sold by US-based Oxygen Forensics Inc.
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Police Mergers
A political hand grenade is hurtling towards the Home Office. In the next few weeks, a report from Lord (Sir Bernard) Hogan-Howe, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will land on the home secretary's desk containing recommendations for cutting the number of police forces in England and Wales.
Structural reform of the police is not high on the current list of voters’ concerns, but Lord Hogan-Howe’s document could well change that. After the crossbench peer names the constabularies which he believes should, in effect, be scrapped, as they are merged to create ‘regional’ forces, it is likely to ignite a huge rumpus that could jeopardise Shabana Mahmood’s ambitious plans to overhaul a policing model that was designed in the 1960s.
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Recruitment and Retention
PM promises to visit Teesside to discuss police numbers following spate of serious violence
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Economy & Public Finance
The role and independence of the Office for Budget Responsibility must be protected amid continued constraints on the country’s public finances, MPs have warned in a report calling for a longer-term thinking.
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Police and Crime General
The chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police, James Vaughan, says he is committed to making progress and accepted the concerns raised by inspectors in a watchdog report.
Devon and Cornwall Police was found to not be effectively investigating crime or safeguarding vulnerable victims.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found that failures in leadership were weakening the force's ability to manage demand, investigate crimes and safeguard victims.
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Prisons
More sexual predators in England and Wales could be freed instead of jailed because of the pressure on courts and prisons, police sources have told the Guardian.
The warning comes after the Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley, on Thursday condemned the release on bail of a man after he admitted taking pictures of children and women, and then using AI to sexualise them.
Zafer Dogan was bailed to his flat overlooking a children’s playground, from which he committed some of the offences he admitted, despite prosecutors and police saying he should be remanded in custody.
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Justice
The probation watchdog, HM Inspectorate of Probation, has warned that staffing shortages and high workloads within the probation service are affecting its ability to assess and manage risks effectively, potentially impacting public safety and support for victims. An inspection found inconsistencies in the quality of supervision and risk assessment, with concerns that important warning signs can be missed. The Chief Inspector said the shortage created an increased risk of prisoner reoffending.
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Justice
The extra policing costs of a plan to house more than a thousand asylum seekers on Ministry of Defence (MoD) land should be covered by the government, a police boss has said.
Earlier this year, the Home Office announced a proposal to accommodate 1,256 men at MoD Bicester, which it said would bring the system "back under control".
Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber said if the plan were approved the government should foot bill for additional policing required around the site.
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Police Demand
Bans on football fans drinking in the stands during matches are outdated, discriminatory and should be scrapped, the prime minister has said.
Andy Burnham, who is an Everton fan, said it was unfair for football fans to be singled out when the supporters of other sports are able to drink while watching their teams.
The ban was put in place during the 1980s when concerns about hooliganism were at their height and covers the top five tiers of English men’s football.
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Police and Crime General
The changes were confirmed by the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) after an agreement was reached by the organisation's National Chair.
It is set to reshape “how the organisation is led, governed and supported, with clearer accountability, stronger scrutiny and more resources focused on branches, representatives and members”, the PFEW said of the new amendments.
The PFEW noted that the new General Secretary post will be “directly elected by members”, and replace the current split leadership model of National Chair and National Secretary.
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Police and Crime General
If you murder a love rival in a fit of jealousy, you can expect to spend time behind bars. If you spend months stealing beef steaks and perfumes from the local supermarket, you’re also likely to be put away.
But siphon thousands of pounds from a vulnerable pensioner’s bank account into your own, and you could end up with the equivalent of a speeding ticket.
It is a principle that forms the basis of civil society: commit a crime and you risk a criminal sanction. That is, unless the crime you commit is fraud.
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Justice
Nine more prisoners trapped on indefinite jail terms have had their sentences referred to the Court of Appeal by the miscarriages of justice watchdog.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is currently reviewing more than 250 cases involving people serving Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) and the youth equivalent, Detention for Public Protection (DPP) jail terms.
So far the watchdog has referred 25 cases to the appeal courts this year after a string of sentences were overturned by top judges.
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Recruitment and Retention
The report, Mixed Messages? Police Impartiality & the National Association of Muslim Police, is authored by David Spencer, a former Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector and the think tank’s Head of Crime & Justice, alongside Dr Paul Stott and Andrew Gilligan.
It recommends a “Police Impartiality Act” that would either abolish staff networks outright or, short of that, bar them from public funding, require full financial transparency, and confine their activity strictly to internal member support.
The report finds that 20 of the 43 Home Office forces, plus Police Scotland, list a local Muslim Police Association, of which NAMP counts 19 as formally affiliated. It draws on Freedom of Information requests, force policies and NAMP’s own published material to examine the organisation’s activities and its links to external bodies including the Muslim Council of Britain, which successive governments have declined to engage with.
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Technology
Citizen Assist, developed through the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Digital Public Contact programme, allows people to report non-emergency crimes by answering questions posed by an AI system.
The technology gathers information about an incident, builds a structured crime report and submits it directly into existing police systems.
Members of the public can review their completed report before submitting it and receive a crime reference number and information about what happens next. The pilot will initially cover reports of assaults, threats, criminal damage and theft.
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Police and Crime General
A new film from the British Transport Police Federation is highlighting the human impact of policing Britain’s rail network, from dealing with vulnerable people and violent passengers to responding to fatalities.
Non-Stop follows a British Transport Police (BTP) officer through a shift, showing the range and unpredictability of incidents officers can face across the railway.
BTP officers police more than 10,000 miles of track and more than 3,000 stations across England, Scotland and Wales. The film depicts officers dealing with missing children, people in crisis and violent passengers, as well as the aftermath of fatalities on the railway.
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Economy & Public Finance
A greater than expected increase in government borrowing in August, attributed to rising inflation, has reportedly intensified pressure on Chancellor John Healey ahead of the upcoming Budget.
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Technology
Police Scotland has completed the national rollout of body worn video (BWV), with more than 16,000 officers and staff now using the technology across the service.
The final phase went live this week, extending the cameras to specialist officers across Edinburgh, the Lothians and Scottish Borders, Forth Valley and Fife.
The rollout now includes custody staff, roads policing officers, CID, Public Protection Units, dog handlers and the mounted unit. Public Enquiry Support Assistants, Safety Camera Partnership Officers and Firearms and Explosives Licensing Officers will also wear cameras when interacting with the public.
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Police and Crime General
Students are being recruited by criminals to transfer illegal packages containing illegal drugs, prohibited weapons, stolen goods and dirty cash, say police in West Yorkshire.
Organised criminals are using social media platforms including Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook to recruit people to help them move illicit goods, particularly targeting students and vulnerable adults.
They offer cash to “parcel mules” to accept criminal packages in what West Yorkshire police has described as a new trend, which could see those not otherwise involved in crime landed with a criminal record.
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Police and Crime General
Every part of the policing sector has signed up to a shared national definition of what officers and staff should be able to expect from occupational health (OH), published by the National Police Wellbeing Service.
National consensus signed by the Home Office, College of Policing, National Police Wellbeing Service, National Police Chiefs’ Council, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, Police Superintendents’ Association, Police Federation of England and Wales and UNISON has all backed the agreement, which has been published during Occupational Health Awareness Week.
The ‘Police occupational health: a national consensus’ sets out the principles every force’s OH service should meet.
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Technology
The East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU), which covers Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire, will end its trial of Palantir’s Foundry platform this month.
The decision follows an assessment of what the technology could deliver alongside the unit’s future funding arrangements.
Ian Green, assistant chief constable in charge of EMSOU, said the pilot had been conducted to assess how the technology could support operational policing while maintaining high standards of accountability and ethics.
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Police Reform
The forces – Kent, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire – have appointed Mark43 UK as the sole supplier for a four-year framework covering intelligence, investigations, case management and custody.
The framework is worth £450m excluding VAT, or £540m including VAT.
Individual contracts are expected to run for an initial 10 years, with the option of a further five-year extension.
The system is intended to become a daily operational tool for police officers and staff, replacing or modernising systems used to manage information across the four areas.
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Prisons
Prison governors in England and Wales have been warned against using unsafe cells to cope with overcrowding, according to documents leaked to the BBC.
The six-page letter from the Prison Governors' Association (PGA) has been sent to members urging them to abide by the law when using cells, ensuring they meet health and safety requirements and are suitable for the number of inmates they are holding.
Prison staff told the BBC they were increasingly having to put two inmates in single occupancy cells, as overcrowding across the adult male estate worsens.
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Prisons
Fourteen hundred feet above sea level, on the windswept moors of west Devon, stands the 200-year-old prison that “time forgot”.
That memorable description of HMP Dartmoor, contained in a damning inspection report in 2002, seems more apt than ever today. The granite-walled jail, with room for 640 prisoners, is an empty shell.
In July 2024, Dartmoor was closed after scientists detected levels of radon gas up to 10 times higher than the recommended workplace limit. Inmates were moved out and staff were laid off or transferred to other jails. The Prison Service said at the time that it was a “precautionary measure”, but prisoners have never returned.
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Police and Crime General
The Federation’s National Council unanimously approved the transformation programme yesterday, following five months of debate and consultation.
Under the new structure, the current split leadership model of National Chair and National Secretary will be replaced by a directly elected General Secretary, supported by a Deputy General Secretary.
The National Board will also be reduced from 24 members to around 15-18, with two independent non-executive directors joining to provide additional expertise and scrutiny.
The National Council will have a strengthened role as the principal route for branch and member representation, scrutiny and accountability.
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Police Finances
The extra policing costs of a plan to house more than a thousand asylum seekers on Ministry of Defence (MoD) land should be covered by the government, a police boss has said.
Earlier this year, the Home Office announced a proposal to accommodate 1,256 men at MoD Bicester, which it said would bring the system "back under control".
Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber said if the plan were approved the government should foot bill for additional policing required around the site.
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Police Finances
The majority of prisoners being freed under the early release scheme will not be fitted with monitoring tags before they are freed next month.
Hundreds of dangerous prisoners will be released without electronic tags as the Probation Service does not have the capacity to fit them before the first wave of releases begins on October 1, The Times understands.
The government had promised that probation supervision would be more intensive under the early release model, which Andy Burnham overhauled when he became prime minister, and electronic tagging would be a bedrock of the model.
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Police and Crime General
A police force has started attaching body cameras to some of their dogs to enable officers to keep better track of their movements.
The devices have been used by Staffordshire Police on three of their firearm support dogs across four incidents since they were introduced.
PC Craig Neeson, who looks after police dog Dan, said there had been "great feedback" so far as it helped officers to see where the animals were "at all times".
"It just gives the handler those vital seconds or minutes to go and locate the dog and see what they're up to," he told BBC Midlands Today.
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Justice
The Government plans to strengthen and expand parenting orders in England and Wales, which can require parents of young offenders to attend counselling or other interventions, with breaches potentially leading to fines, benefit deductions or, in extreme cases, imprisonment. Youth Justice Minister Jake Richards said the measures were intended to ensure parents play a greater role in addressing offending.
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Justice
Specialist courtrooms for rape and serious sexual offence cases will be introduced across England and Wales, with every Crown Court set to have at least one within two years and trials given fixed dates to reduce delays. The Government is also providing £43 million for survivor support and establishing a rape justice taskforce, alongside measures including private entrances and waiting rooms and trauma-informed training for court staff.
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Justice
Andy Burnham is set to scrap Sir Keir Starmer’s plans for judge-only trials in a move that could head off a backbench rebellion.
The Prime Minister is considering ditching his predecessor’s proposal for judge-only courts to hear cases in which defendants face prison sentences of less than three years.
However, ministers are still planning to go ahead with proposals to remove the historic right of defendants to opt for a jury trial in a crown court.
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Justice
Survivors of an Oxford grooming gang say they still see men who sexually abused them, and who have not been brought to justice, walking around the city.
"A shop, a petrol station, a restaurant - everywhere you can imagine - you'll see a man that's done something," one survivor, Sarah, tells BBC Panorama.
Sarah and two other survivors believe "hundreds" of perpetrators are still free. An ex-police detective who led the initial investigation into grooming gangs in Oxford agrees.
It is the first time that Sarah (whose name we have changed) and one of the other women have spoken out publicly about what they were subjected to.
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Police and Crime General
The taskforce will bring together government, local leaders and experts to examine how misogynistic attitudes can be challenged across society, including in communities, workplaces and online.
Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson said the government would “lead from the front” in tackling misogyny and changing attitudes towards women and girls.
The initiative forms part of the government’s wider strategy to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, which places prevention alongside the pursuit of perpetrators and support for victims.
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Police and Crime General
Thousands of people in Hampshire are calling for more action on 'noisy' car exhausts, a survey shows.
Over 4,400 people took part in a survey, put out by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire over the summer.
Donna Jones says she asked residents for their views, after concerns were raised over excessive vehicles noise across the county.
It is currently against the law to make an exhaust louder, but there is currently no legally enforceable roadside decibel limit.
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Prisons
The majority of prisoners being freed under the early release scheme will not be fitted with monitoring tags before they are freed next month.
Hundreds of dangerous prisoners will be released without electronic tags as the Probation Service does not have the capacity to fit them before the first wave of releases begins on October 1, The Times understands.
The government had promised that probation supervision would be more intensive under the early release model, which Andy Burnham overhauled when he became prime minister, and electronic tagging would be a bedrock of the model.
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Police and Crime General
Police impartiality is at risk of being undermined by staff networks that are “going way over the line” and trying to influence policy, a report has warned.
At least 12 different staff associations for protected characteristics such as race, sex, disability, religion and sexual orientation are recognised by police chiefs. However, a report by Policy Exchange, a conservative think tank, focused on the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP), which has more than 2,000 members and is affiliated with as many as 19 forces in England and Wales, and force-level Muslim staff associations. At least 20 forces have a local Muslim police association but the names of the groups tend to vary.
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Police and Crime General
Police have carried out a series of early morning raids targeting those suspected of being involved in organised crime.
Cleveland Police said 17 people had been arrested during the operation - involving about 130 officers including some from the National Crime Agency - across South Bank, Grangetown and Eston, near Middlesbrough, on Monday.
It is part of a high-profile response to a crash on the nearby A66 last month which came at the end of a police pursuit and left two officers dead.
Five men also died when their Volkswagen Passat went the wrong way down the road and hit a Cleveland Police armed response vehicle heading in the opposite direction.
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Police Demand
More than 23,000 people have been killed or seriously injured in crashes involving a young driver in the past five years, police have said.
Analysis of Department for Transport data from 2021 to 2025 show that around 7,500 casualties were young drivers themselves - aged between 17 and 24 - while more than 4,000 were passengers in vehicles driven by young motorists.
More than 11,600 - about half of all those killed or seriously injured - were other road users, including people in other vehicles and pedestrians.
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Police and Crime General
Victims of intrusive police surveillance have accused the government of seeking to cut short the spycops public inquiry that has been examining widespread misconduct committed by undercover officers.
The independent judge-led inquiry is scrutinising how officers, who spied on tens of thousands of political activists over more than four decades, carried out abuses such as deceiving women into sexual relationships and fathering children.
The inquiry has been running for more than a decade, and is expected to last another two years.
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Technology
Meta has launched a fresh legal challenge against Britain’s media regulator in the latest of a slew of actions by social media companies who are accused of using the courts to slow down implementation of the Online Safety Act.
Lawyers for the parent company of Facebook served notice during the week in an appeal against placing WhatsApp and Instagram, which are also owned by Meta, in a category that subjects them to additional duties.
Those additional responsibilities include greater transparency, more user controls, measures to protect users from fraudulent advertising and increased recording of illegal content.
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Police Finances
The Liberal Democrats say they will tax big tech to finance a new online crime agency, as they try to address concerns that not enough voters know what the party stands for.
The plan, to be announced at the party conference on Monday by the Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesperson, Max Wilkinson, would create a new Online Crime Agency focused on offences including child sexual abuse material, trafficking in drugs and weapons, and deepfake AI-generated pornographic images.
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Technology
A new report by the London Policing Ethics Panel warns that failures by the Met Police to consult with and engage the public over its use of artificial intelligence (AI) in policing is “at odds with the principle of policing by consent”; the Panel also warns of the risks to both victims and suspects of the potential harms of AI errors, and the dangers of “cognitive surrender” by officers due to their over-reliance on the technology, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
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Police and Crime General
Organised crime networks are exploiting recycling taxes, the Government’s fly-tipping chief has warned.
Phil Davies, the head of Whitehall’s joint unit for waste crime, said loopholes in environmental schemes were being abused by criminal networks.
In an interview with The Telegraph, he also accused lawyers and financial advisers of propping up Britain’s £1bn waste crime industry by helping rogue actors stay in business.
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Police Demand
About 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse are estimated to be made to maternity services in England every year, analysis has found.
The figures are likely to be an underestimate of the true scale of disclosures, according to experts, highlighting the role maternity professionals play in identifying abuse.
About 3.3% of maternity bookings made within NHS trusts across England involved a disclosure of current or non-recent domestic abuse.
Applying this proportion to national NHS maternity bookings activity suggests there are approximately 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse made within maternity services in England every year.
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Justice
Parents could lose their benefits or face prison sentences for their children's crimes under reforms to the youth justice system, a minister has said.
Youth Justice Minister Jake Richards told the Times newspaper the system "should hold parents to account in a proportionate way for ensuring that they play their role in keeping communities safe".
His comments come after the government set out plans in May to strengthen and expand Parenting Orders, which can currently compel parents or guardians to address their child's behaviour by attending counselling sessions or face fines.
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Technology
Vast troves of highly sensitive police data are lying on Microsoft cloud platforms which an o?cial UK security assessment deemed to be vulnerable to “compromise” by foreign actors and the US government, a Guardian investigation can reveal.
The files include criminal records, victim statements, internal emails and sensitive information held by more than 40 police forces across the UK.
Some files exceed “o?cial” classification, according to a police document seen by the Guardian, raising the possibility the information could be classed as “secret” or “top secret”.
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Police Demand
The BBC has been given special access to a police unit that says it has been disrupting organised crime gangs responsible for stealing millions of pounds worth of goods from shops across the UK.
The organised retail crime (ORC) team within Opal, a national police intelligence unit, was set up two years ago and works with retailers and local police forces to target criminals responsible for raids across multiple stores around Britain.
It was launched after a surge in shop theft that peaked in 2025 with more than half a million offences recorded in a year.
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Police Finances
The Bank of England governor warns of the threats of criminals using AI as the London force faces a potential merger with the Met
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Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England has kept its main interest rate at 3.75%, but three of its nine policymakers voted to raise it, exposing a divided committee as the energy shock from the Iran war pushes inflation to a five-month high of 3.1%.
The Monetary Policy Committee voted by a majority of six to three on Thursday to leave borrowing costs unchanged, with the dissenting trio pushing for a quarter-point increase to 4%.
The decision puts the Bank of England at odds with the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, both of which have tightened within the past week.
Despite holding, the central bank expects the situation to worsen before it improves.
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Economy & Public Finance
The Government could need to find around £10 billion through tax rises or spending cuts in the October Budget, amid higher borrowing costs and pressure from the Iran war. Economists estimate the Government’s £23 billion fiscal headroom may have fallen to between £5 billion and £10 billion after accounting for recent policy commitments and higher defence spending.
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Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation rose from 2.9 per cent in July to 3.1 per cent in August, driven by higher fuel and transport costs amid the Iran war. Petrol and diesel prices rose sharply, adding to pressure on households ahead of the Bank of England’s latest interest rate decision.
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Police Finances
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey says the government should give Cleveland Police £20m extra a year so it can employ hundreds more officers to tackle the highest crime rate in England.
The force's Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) have asked the home secretary for extra funding after the deaths of two police officers in a crash on the A66 near Middlesbrough. Five young men also died.
Speaking ahead of his party's conference, Sir Ed backed their funding calls, adding: "When you look at the crime figures you wonder why government hasn't acted before."
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Police Demand
New tactics rolled out this year by Merseyside Police mean that when there is overwhelming evidence against a shoplifting suspect, a fast-track digital evidence-gathering protocol can be followed to free up officers to investigate more cases.
Ch Insp Chris Ruane said the results of Operation Dale were "game changing" and that his force was now solving about 46% of reported offences - approximately double the rate of six months ago.
The city-centre neighbourhood team's workload is increasing, too, with the number of reported incidents having increased by about 10% during the last financial year.
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Police Reform
Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe says without reform there will be no 'new money'.
Simply describing ‘worse and worse crises’ and complaining about demand on services will not wash with the government, the NPCC’s national lead for police reform has said.
AC Louisa Rolfe, who leads for policing within the newly established Police Reform Delivery Authority, a joint effort between policing and the government, said that without a commitment to radical reform these complaints will fall on deaf ears. She also said that for too long the service has been guilty of ‘bolting on’ a new unit or capability in relation to an emerging issue or problem which simply leaves a gap in capability somewhere else.
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Police Reform
Tijs Broeke, chair of the City of London Police Authority Board, said an independent City of London Police had a "vital national role" to play in keeping people safe and supporting economic growth right across the country.
Speaking before an invited audience of serving police officers, criminal justice representatives and Police Authority Board Members, Mr Broeke welcomed police reform that makes policing more effective, efficient and better equipped to respond to the changing nature of crime.
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Police Demand
At the height of his offending, Jeff Ashman estimates he walked out of shops with goods worth £400 to £500 on a daily basis.
"It's mind-boggling," he said, describing how much he had stolen from stores in Hastings to fuel his addiction to heroin and crack cocaine.
"I know the misery and grief and despair that I have caused these people for a long period of time."
Shoplifting is now firmly in the past for Ashman, but prolific shoplifters like him continue to plague communities across England.
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Justice
The early release scheme is the “lowest form of insult” to victims of crime, a senior police leader will say, as he calls for a royal commission to overhaul the criminal justice system.
Nick Smart, the president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, will warn that the government’s plan to release criminals early to free up prison space will damage public confidence in policing.
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Police Finances
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey says the government should give Cleveland Police £20m extra a year so it can employ hundreds more officers to tackle the highest crime rate in England.
The force's Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) have asked the home secretary for extra funding after the deaths of two police officers in a crash on the A66 near Middlesbrough. Five young men also died.
Speaking ahead of his party's conference, Sir Ed backed their funding calls, adding: "When you look at the crime figures you wonder why government hasn't acted before."
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Recruitment and Retention
Another Metropolitan Police officer has been dismissed following BBC Panorama's undercover investigation into the force's Charing Cross station.
PC Mason O'Connor was sacked after a hearing found he had breached standards of professional behaviour, relating to a comment he made to a female colleague, the Met said.
O'Connor was reported to a "proactive wider investigation" following the broadcast of the programme in October 2025 and he has become the 13th officer to be sacked since then, the force added.
Other officers who were covertly filmed for the documentary were seen calling for immigrants to be shot, boasting about excessive use of force and joking about rape and sexual assault.
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Economy & Public Finance
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said the Government remains committed to increasing defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035, with a target date for reaching 3 per cent due to be set out in the spring spending review. During Prime Minister’s Questions, he rejected opposition proposals to help fund higher defence spending through reductions in housing benefit, arguing that national security should not come at the expense of social security.
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Prisons
Guernsey's prison population is at its highest since early 2019, figures show.
Currently 95 inmates, external are housed at Les Nicolles in St Sampson's, the highest since April 2019, when 97 inmates were detained.
The prison has accommodation to house a maximum of 134 prisoners. Of the current population, the highest proportion of prisoners were in for sex offences.
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Police Reform
Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner has confirmed there will be a review of local government reorganisation following new legal advice. Reflecting a majority view of the LGA's political leadership, a spokesperson for the LGA said that the announcement “will have caused significant uncertainty, after councils have invested scarce public money and countless hours” in the reorganisation programme
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Economy & Public Finance
The Chancellor has not ruled out tax increases in next month's Budget. John Healey promised to “balance the books” and “control public spending”. In his first major speech as Chancellor, he said his mission was to “make Great Britain growth Britain” again.
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Police Mergers
HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Michelle Skeer believes the Government’s police reform proposals for England and Wales offer “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” for a system under strain, despite particularly “divided views” over force mergers; writing in the latest annual State of Policing assessment, she also calls for reform of the wider criminal justice system, and urgent improvements to the police investigation of crime, as policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.
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Police and Crime General
Responding to the publication of the annual assessment of policing, published by His Majesty’s Inspector of Policing, Fire and Rescue Services, APCC Chair Emily Spurrell said:
“This report provides further evidence of the immense and growing pressures facing policing. Crime is becoming more complex, public expectations continue to rise, and recent events have once again highlighted the critical importance of a resilient and well-supported police service.
“The findings strengthen the case for a National Police Service. I am particularly pleased that the Inspectorate has echoed the APCC’s longstanding position that any new service must be built on strong foundations of governance, democratic accountability and transparency from day one.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Two more men have been arrested over a huge illegal dump site in Kidlington, Oxfordshire.
Estimated at 150m long, 15m wide and 10m high, the site between the River Cherwell and the A34 made headlines last year.
The Environment Agency (EA) said in August it had finally cleared the site, removing an estimated 22,000 tonnes of household waste and commercial rubbish.
[ more...]
Police Demand
[Video]
[ more...]
Justice
Police chiefs say they will need nearly £500m to tackle crime and rule-breaking by prisoners freed early by Labour.
The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) estimates that it will cost the 43 forces in England and Wales an additional £480m in police time to deal with convicts on the early release scheme breaching their licences or reoffending.
Jason Hogg, the chief constable of Thames Valley Police, warned that the extra demand could divert officers from dealing with everyday crimes.
[ more...]
Justice
Speaking to BBC Breakfast about the protests in Portsmouth, Jones says that "people have a right to peaceful protest" and that was "largely" the case last night.
Pushed on whether she agrees with the government's description of the demonstration as "thuggish", Jones says: "For a small proportion of the people that were protesting last night, yes I would agree with the government's comments there.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) estimates that the 43 forces will need to devote the equivalent of £480 million in police time to dealing with offenders who breach their licence conditions or commit further offences after being released.
The warning comes as around 4,500 prisoners are due to be released early under the Government’s plans to ease pressure on overcrowded jails. The releases are due to begin on 1 October and will take place in monthly tranches over the following ten months.
Jason Hogg, chief constable of Thames Valley Police, told the Telegraph that the additional demand could force forces to divert officers from dealing with crimes being committed now.
[ more...]
Prisons
Ministers will seriously examine converting parts of the female prison estate into cells that can safely house male prisoners, as the government looks to reduce numbers of women in prison to ease strain on the system.
The prisons minister Catherine McKinnell is to look into the practicalities of converting female spaces to male over the coming months, after warnings from governors and experts that it would pose significant challenges.
[ more...]
Justice
The Child-like Sexual Abuse Dolls (Offences) Private Members’ Bill passed its second reading in Parliament and has now progressed to committee stage. Anyone convicted of an offence under the proposed law could face up to five years in prison.
The Government said police had encountered the dolls while investigating suspected child sexual abuse and when monitoring registered sex offenders. However, current legislation does not create a specific offence for owning or making the dolls.
Ministers said the new law would close that loophole and give police greater powers to seize the items and prosecute those involved in their manufacture or sale.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police chiefs say they will need nearly £500m to tackle crime and rule-breaking by prisoners freed early by Labour.
The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) estimates that it will cost the 43 forces in England and Wales an additional £480m in police time to deal with convicts on the early release scheme breaching their licences or reoffending.
Jason Hogg, the chief constable of Thames Valley Police, warned that the extra demand could divert officers from dealing with everyday crimes.
[ more...]
Police Mergers
Surrey's Police Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend has said she believes a massive overhaul of policing can be halted.
In January, the government confirmed it intended to merge 43 forces across England and Wales into larger, regional forces.
But Townsend said the situation had "potentially changed" since Andy Burnham took power.
Without making specific commitments, the new prime minister has said he wants further devolution, which could signal a change from previous policy.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The government is attempting to plug gaps in the service for when the early release scheme begins next month, but sceptics believe permanent hires are needed
[ more...]
Police Reform
Surrey's Police Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend has said she believes a massive overhaul of policing can be halted.
In January, the government confirmed it intended to merge 43 forces across England and Wales into larger, regional forces.
But Townsend said the situation had "potentially changed" since Andy Burnham took power.
[ more...]
Prisons
Suspects charged with serious knife and firearm offences are being released on bail amid Britain's prison overcrowding crisis, the country's most senior police officer has warned.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said he was "flabbergasted" by a fall in the number of defendants accused of knife and gun crimes being remanded in custody – which he claimed was leading to the accused being repeatedly charged and bailed over the same offences.
Despite saying stricter knife crime and firearms legislation had helped reduce serious crime over the last 25 years, Sir Mark said the country was now "seeing the consequences" of what he called an "overloaded justice system".
[ more...]
Prisons
A new prison in East Yorkshire was "unready, understaffed and unsafe upon opening", according to an inspection report.
The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for HMP Millsike said a lack of staff and workers' inexperience meant "its opening was chaotic, with basic processes, like drawing keys, locking doors and counting prisoners, not yet established".
The Category C jail, run by Mitie Care & Custody and designed to house 1,500 prisoners, opened at a cost of about £400m last year.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Long-term government borrowing costs have risen to their highest level since 1998, adding pressure on the public finances ahead of next month’s Budget. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said “fiscal responsibility” would be the Government’s bedrock, while pledging further measures to tackle the cost of living.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Cleveland Police will be given an extra £2m to tackle serious crime, the home secretary has announced, after a spate of incidents in and around Middlesbrough.
It follows a deadly collision near the town on 22 August, when the five occupants of a vehicle driving the wrong way down the A66 crashed into a police car, killing themselves along with two policemen.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Cleveland Police will be given an extra £2m to tackle serious crime, the home secretary has announced, after a spate of incidents in and around Middlesbrough.
It follows a deadly collision near the town on 22 August, when the five occupants of a vehicle driving the wrong way down the A66 crashed into a police car, killing themselves along with two policemen.
The two officers, PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, were killed when the Volkswagen Passat hit their marked armed response vehicle. A police pursuit of the Volkswagen had been abandoned shortly before.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Total gains reported reached £127bn – up 82% year-on-year – with London and the South East accounting for around half of the total gains (49%) and tax liability (50%).
The total number of CGT taxpayers also increased by 45% to 584,000. Taxpayers making gains of £5m or more accounted for 45% of all CGT liabilities, despite representing less than 1% of CGT taxpayers.
Just 19,000 taxpayers accounted for 72% of the £57bn increase in gains and 74% of the £11.4bn increase in CGT liabilities.
This followed major changes to the tax, announced by former chancellor Rachel Reeves during the Autumn Budget in 2024, increasing the basic rate from 10% to 18% and the higher rate from 20% to 24%.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Prime Minister Andy Burnham says he is open to the idea of giving the Welsh government control of policing in Wales.
His comments were a marked change in tone from what the UK government has previously said, with the idea rejected in the past.
Burnham said that while he could not make promises, he would be "open to the conversation", and that with "wider policing reform" going on it was a "good time to look at those issues".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police-recorded crime has changed dramatically over the past 25 years, with some of the most serious offences falling substantially. But the long-term decline remains one of the biggest unanswered questions in criminology.
[ more...]
Police Finances
A retiring chief constable has warned the prime minister against any cuts to local policing, telling him: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
Ben-Julian Harrington steps down on Monday after eight years in charge of Essex Police, having started his career with the Metropolitan Police in 1990.
During his tenure he has called for his officers to be paid more, saying some were leaving the force for better-paid jobs in scaffolding and double-glazing.
The Home Office said it was working with police to "deliver major reforms" and "ensure we have the right policing in the right places".
[ more...]
Justice
The government is spending £110m on creating more cells in existing prisons in England and Wales as part of its plans to tackle overcrowding.
The money, which will come from existing budgets, will be used to convert unused office space, laundry rooms and storage space into cells, the Ministry of Justice said.
Justice Secretary Alex Norris is due to give more details in the Commons later on changes to the early release scheme, which aims to free up space in prisons as they near maximum capacity.
[ more...]
Justice
Prisoners who were freed under the government's last early release scheme are returning to jail at a rapid rate, prison governors have told the BBC.
They say they are seeing the same inmates, who were let out as part of the 2024 early release scheme to ease overcrowding, coming back after reoffending - including for breaching their conditions.
"The churn is what stresses me out," said one governor in the Midlands, describing it as a "revolving door".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The government ignored five requests for help from Cleveland police before last week’s deadly outbreak of gang-linked violence in Middlesbrough, it is claimed.
Matt Storey, the Cleveland police and crime commissioner, who oversees the force’s performance, had written at least seven letters to the government since July 2024 warning that officers were “woefully underfunded” and that their ability to protect the public was at risk.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
All police forces in England and Wales will have dedicated specialist rape and sexual offence teams in place by December 2027, after the government brought forward the original rollout deadline by more than a year.
The accelerated programme forms part of the government's wider ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, strengthening the criminal justice response to some of the most serious offences affecting communities across the country.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police officers rush to separate three people involved in a heated argument that is threatening to spill over into violence. A man, who is the main aggressor and shouting foul language, is pepper-sprayed and handcuffed by an officer as they bring the incident under control.
On this occasion, it is all part of the training for some of the student officers hoping to make the grade at Lincolnshire Police.
The people involved are actors and the spray is water, but it is an example of what trainees will be dealing with should they complete their two-year training course at the Nettleham HQ.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police are failing to solve nine in 10 crimes at petrol stations, including assaults and robberies, according to new analysis.
More than 170,000 offences have been recorded at petrol stations in just over four years, data obtained under Freedom of Information laws found.
Yet the figures show that only 14,395 of the crimes (8.5 per cent) resulted in action being taken against suspects, including prosecutions, cautions and other sanctions.
[ more...]
Police Finances
LONDON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Investors do not fully price in a quarter-point rate hike by the Bank of England until its February 2027 meeting, market prices showed on Thursday as bond yields extended a gradual move lower after an interruption on Wednesday.
LSEG data showed 24.3 basis points of rate increases priced in by the time of the BoE's December 17 rate announcement, down from more than 25 bps for most of August, and 36 bps of increase by the time of the February 4 rate announcement.
Less than 4 bps of tightening is priced in for the BoE's September 17 meeting — implying just a 15% chance of a hike — compared with 24 bps of tightening priced in for the European Central Bank at its September 10 decision.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A man who drove a van at four police officers and injured one has been jailed for four years.
Aaron Swanson, 28, hit PC Lucy O'Donnell on the body after she ordered him to stop his van and drove at excessive speed towards other officers.
He was originally charged with attempted murder following the incident in Clydebank on 5 January 2025, but was convicted at the High Court at Livingston of two less serious offences - assault to injury and danger of life.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The former chief constable of West Midlands Police is being investigated by the police watchdog for gross misconduct over the banning of Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has given notice that it is investigating Craig Guildford, as well as three police officers and a staff member.
An independent investigation was launched by the IOPC in January to examine the involvement of West Midlands Police officers in the planning and preparation of the match at Villa Park on 6 November 2025.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Prime Minister Andy Burnham has not ruled out tax rises in the Autumn Budget. Mr Burnham says he “won’t be unrealistic” about the “challenging” state of public finances.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Young people are “baiting police officers” with dangerous driving, the Police Federation of England and Wales said in the wake of the collision in which seven people, including two police officers, were killed.
It comes after police said five young men who died after their vehicle hit a police car on a dual carriageway may have had links to “serious and organised criminal activity”.
Cleveland Police said 12 other people have been arrested over alleged criminality leading up to the collision in Teesside.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The hashtags tell the story of the potentially lethal social media subculture where young men film themselves hurtling at illegal speeds down busy roads: #speedhunters, #needforspeed, #racing.
The fast-driving internet trend on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube is fed by footage shot from a driver’s perspective of cars going “#fullsend” – the jargon for roaring down dual carriageways – and “#gapping” or “#swimming”, as in weaving dangerously through packed traffic. The posts attract thousands, sometimes millions of views and have been described by Andy Burnham on Monday as “truly reprehensible”.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police officers who identify as gender-fluid have been issued with both male and female warrant cards, allowing them to use different identification.
Leicestershire, Norfolk and Suffolk police confirmed that they had issued more than one identity card to officers to reflect different genders, according to freedom of information responses obtained by The Telegraph.
Warrant cards are official identification documents carried by officers. Police carrying out a stop and search must show their warrant card if they are not in uniform.
[ more...]
Justice
The UK Government must “act decisively” on fraud before it becomes endemic, eroding public trust and compromising the rule of law, warns a new report, with more resources put into tackling an under-prioritised crime, along with new offences, improved data sharing and more safeguards for whistleblowers, among the recommendations for targeting a crime that offenders currently commit with “near-certain impunity”, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.
[ more...]
Police Demand
More than a third of searches carried out in July resulted in officers finding weapons, drugs, or other evidence of offending, new figures released on Monday show.
In 2025, stop and search helped officers seize at least 3,800 weapons and discover illegal drugs on more than 27,800 occasions.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police seizures of e-bikes across the UK have risen by 83% in a year following a crackdown on dangerous models.
New data shows 7,049 e-bikes were confiscated nationally in the 12 months to 19 May, compared with 3,858 in the previous year.
Police, politicians and charities are calling for new laws to tackle illegal bikes as a result of the figures, which have caused serious injuries and deaths in some cases.
[ more...]
Police Demand
On England’s hottest day of the year so far, Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester was thronging with pedestrians, many clutching ice-creams or cold drinks as they passed through the town centre.
Officers from Greater Manchester police were also out in force, some in plainclothes, some stationed by a facial-recognition van, apprehending wanted suspects and stopping persons of interest. In total, officers made 54 arrests across the borough of Tameside as part of Operation Avro, GMP’s blitz on local crime which runs in a different district each month.
[ more...]
Justice
Research by IPSOS Mori reveals that 69 per cent of people now oppose the policy - up from 53 per cent two years ago.
Implementing the Sentencing Act - passed by Sir Keir Starmer's government earlier this year to free up spaces in prisons - is shaping up to be one of the new PM's biggest tests.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy grew by 0.4% in the second quarter of the year, official figures show.
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Police and Crime General
A police and crime commissioner has called on the government to do more to tackle excessively noisy vehicle exhausts.
Donna Jones, who represents Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, said with no legally enforceable roadside decibel limit it was difficult for police forces nationwide to combat the problem.
"Countless people have told me how the constant racket is affecting their ability to enjoy their homes and get a decent night's sleep," she said.
[ more...]
Police Reform
People are being urged to give their views on plans to merge Surrey Police with its neighbouring forces.
Under government proposals, Surrey Police could disappear and become part of a larger South East "mega force", said Lisa Townsend, Surrey's police and crime commissioner.
She wants residents to fill out a survey, which closes at midnight on 17 August.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Paid paternity leave for police in England and Wales is to double, after the Guardian revealed last year that officers were “mocked and ostracised” for taking time off to spend with their babies.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has increased the amount of paid parental and adoption leave for officers from one week to two across all forces, with fathers’ leave upped to be in line with mothers’.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police forces across the country potentially face depleted headcounts after a survey found that almost a third of police officers and staff plan to leave their jobs within the next twelve months
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Paid paternity leave for police in England and Wales is to double, after the Guardian revealed last year that officers were “mocked and ostracised” for taking time off to spend with their babies.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has increased the amount of paid parental and adoption leave for officers from one week to two across all forces, with fathers’ leave upped to be in line with mothers’.
[ more...]
Police Demand
A year-long police pilot has resulted in charges for more than 700 suspected crimes.
Cambridgeshire Police said it has made 262 arrests and brought charges for 731 incidents, including shoplifting, burglary, assaults, breaches of court orders, drug offences, and criminal damage.
The specialist team was launched in July last year by the force to support the retail industry by targeting prolific offenders across Peterborough and Fenland.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A trainee police officer has appeared in court accused of rape and kidnap.
Greater Manchester Police said a 999 call was received at about 22:20 BST on Saturday, during which a woman could be heard in distress in a vehicle in the Manchester area.
Mohammad Hassan, from Failsworth in Greater Manchester, who was off duty at the time, was arrested following a police pursuit on the M62 on Saturday night, GMP said.
[ more...]
Justice
The government had previously said it was not possible to exempt individual offenders convicted of manslaughter from the scheme, but Downing Street has now asked Justice Secretary Alex Norris to explore other options.
A government spokesperson said the prime minister had asked Norris to “work through further options to keep a greater number of the most serious offenders in prison, including the killers of PC Harper”.
Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers were each sentenced to 13 years for the manslaughter of PC Harper, who was killed while responding to a quad-bike theft in Berkshire in 2019. Both men are currently due to be released in January, having served half of their sentences.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Fifty police chiefs have signed a letter urging the prime minister to pursue "every legal option" to prevent the early release of PC Andrew Harper's killers.
PC Harper, 28, died in 2019 when he was dragged behind the getaway car of three teenagers who had fled the scene of a quad bike theft in Berkshire.
The intervention comes shortly after Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he was "confident" the early release of Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers in January could be prevented.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Conservatives will attempt to block the early release of Pc Andrew Harper’s killers in a parliamentary vote.
The party is preparing an amendment to Labour’s Sentencing Act 2026 that would exclude criminals convicted of the manslaughter of an emergency worker from the early release scheme.
[ more...]
Police Reform
In this conversation from the College of Policing’s Canary Wharf headquarters, Chief Constable Sir Andy Marsh discusses the Police Reform White Paper and what he sees as one of the biggest opportunities for policing in England and Wales for decades. He describes the paper as potentially the most dramatic set of reforms since Peel, and argues that while the headlines have focused on force mergers and a National Police Service, many of the most important changes sit in the detail around leadership, standards and performance.
The interview explores three big themes: performance improvement, the future force landscape, and the case for a stronger centre in policing. Sir Andy explains why he supports a more formal turnaround capability for forces in difficulty, why performance and integrity must go hand in hand, and why he believes it is possible to balance local identity with stronger national structures. He also makes clear that if a National Police Service can help the College of Policing do more and do it better, he would support that direction.
[ more...]
Police Demand
An elite police squad which was set up to monitor social media in the wake of the Southport riots has flagged more than 100 posts to local forces.
The National Internet Intelligence Investigations team was created earlier this year to surveil online platforms for signs of “protest-related activity”.
It was founded by ministers in response to the national unrest following the 2024 Southport murders, which prompted a series of anti-immigrant riots.
[ more...]
Fire
Firefighters in the UK are under increased pressure as a result of an “unprecedented summer of dangerous and volatile wildfires”, the Fire Brigades Union has said, as many parts of the country brace for a fifth heatwave of the year.
As authorities declared almost three-quarters of England was now in drought, Steve Wright, the FBU general secretary, said the unpredictable environmental challenges the UK was now confronted with meant it was a “national priority” to have enough properly equipped firefighters to “face these threats”.
[ more...]
Technology
Live facial recognition (LFR) cameras are to be deployed at some of London's Tube stations from Tuesday.
Transport for London (TfL) said the technology would identify people on a police watchlist to help catch "high harm" offenders, such as those wanted for sexual offences, robbery and knife crime.
TfL said British Transport Police (BTP) will trial LFR at key stations for maximum impact based on intelligence and analysis of crime data. Images of people who are not a match to the watchlist will be "automatically and immediately deleted".
[ more...]
Technology
A senior detective is being investigated over alleged AI-related gross misconduct.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was investigating a Derbyshire constabulary officer’s use of AI after a referral by the force.
The force confirmed it had made a voluntary referral to the IOPC on June 23. A spokesman said it related to an officer’s use of AI and the investigation was being independently led by the IOPC.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Councils are to be given powers to stop betting and vape shops taking over their high streets under new plans announced by Andy Burnham.
Local authorities will be able to reject new betting shops and adult gaming centres, while vape shops will be subject to planning permission under plans Downing Street said could be in place from the start of next year.
Burnham is promising to scrap the “aim to permit” rule in the Gambling Act 2005, which in effect requires councils to allow new gambling premises where applications meet licensing requirements.
[ more...]
Police Reform
On 31st July the Cabinet Office published Rewiring the State, a statement setting out the government’s vision for devolution in England. Most of the coverage has focused on the increase in the number of Mayors and on the transfer of powers to them.
What isn’t getting nearly as much attention is the commitment to make fundamental changes to the governance of emergency services. Changes that have implications for accountability and which raise important questions about the public’s role in decision-making.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The Police Federation has warned policing is nearing a tipping point, with almost one in three officers and staff ready to leave as years of warnings on pay, workload and leadership are ignored.
The findings published today in Oscar Kilo's National Police Workforce and Wellbeing Survey are yet another warning sign from a workforce that has been raising the same concerns for years about workload, work-life balance and pay, with little meaningful action taken.
Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of police officers considering leaving say poor work-life balance is driving their decision, while forces across the UK owe almost 820,000 rest days, equivalent to more than 2,240 years of lost family time, rest and recovery.
[ more...]
Prisons
Prisons are at risk of running out of space because so many repeat offenders are being recalled to jail, the head of the probation watchdog has warned.
Martin Jones, the chief inspector of probation, has told ministers there is a risk that a “significant number” of prison places freed up by Labour’s early release scheme will be “dissipated” by the record numbers of prisoners who have breached their licence or reoffended.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Free seatbelt covers are being offered to people who might struggle to communicate with emergency workers after a road accident.
They contain a unique PIN number that links to their personal details on the national Pegasus database, where anyone with a disability or illness that may affect communication can register.
The covers, which can be easily attached to a regular seatbelt, were designed by road safety organisation Vision Zero and were funded by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
[ more...]
Police Reform
The man who oversees Wiltshire Police has warned the future of the force is uncertain.
Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Philip Wilkinson is asking the public to share their views on a major shake-up of policing, including the prospect of forces merging with neighbouring areas.
Meanwhile, devolution of local authorities threatens to split the force into two separate combined authorities. "Will there be a Wiltshire Police? Honestly, I don't know," said Wilkinson.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said: "We want to rebuild confidence by delivering the right policing in the right place."
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Arrests of migrants working illegally in the UK have doubled since Labour has been in government, the Home Office has said.
It said more than 17,000 arrests had been made since July 2024, a 122% increase on the previous two years, with a record number of immigration raids and arrests in the last six months.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "This surge in enforcement activity takes us to the highest level in British history. Illegal workers and rogue employers have nowhere to hide."
Reform UK said Labour was "insulting the intelligence of the British public" with these new figures.
[ more...]
Prisons
As the prison overcrowding crisis shows no sign of abating and the debate rages over early releases, an initiative in the West Midlands offers an alternative to custodial sentences.
The Guardian was offered rare access to the project, under which, instead of being sent to prison, convicted offenders work on the improvement of waterways and green spaces around Smethwick. It is a small part of the community payback scheme, which in total clocked up an estimated 5m hours across England and Wales in the last year.
[ more...]
Technology
When Ofcom’s new chairman met the culture secretary Lisa Nandy for the first time this week, one of their most urgent talking points was whether the regulator was in the right shape to fulfil its new duties holding the world’s largest social media platforms to account.
The board of Ofcom is undertaking a “wide-ranging review” which will consider whether the regulator is ready for the challenges ahead in enforcing online safety in rapidly developing digital industries, including an incoming social media ban for under-16s.
In a letter to the government just weeks after his appointment in June, Sir Ian Cheshire, the chairman, told the government that Ofcom could “be faster, more agile and more outcome-focused while continuing to make robust and evidence-based decisions”.
[ more...]
Justice
Catastrophic errors left a persistent and proven sex offender free before he murdered two women in London, it can be revealed.
On Friday, an Old Bailey jury found Simon Levy, 40, guilty of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins five months later.
Levy was on bail as a suspect for the first murder when he committed the second, after police said they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him.
[ more...]
Justice
New technology allowing retailers to submit evidence directly to police has quadrupled the number of shoplifting cases resulting in offenders being brought to justice, according to the Metropolitan Police Service.
The force said the digital reporting platform, which enables retailers to upload CCTV footage, witness statements and other evidence directly to investigating officers, has increased the positive outcome rate for reported shoplifting offences from 7.3 per cent to 29.4 per cent in boroughs where it has been piloted.
The system, which has been trialled in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley, is being expanded to retailers in Southwark, Lambeth, Sutton, Croydon, Bromley, Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
More arrests have been made over disorder linked to anti-immigration protests that saw crowds attempt to storm the homes of suspected asylum seekers and a police officer "seriously bitten".
Asylum seekers were removed from properties in Thetford on Thursday for their own safety, Norfolk Police said.
Two men in their 40s were arrested as protests in the market town continued for a third night, and a woman was arrested on Friday in relation to an assault on a police officer, bringing the total number detained to six.
[ more...]
Prisons
There is something deeply incongruous about a penal system centred on incarceration having to release prisoners early because it has run out of room to incarcerate them (PM to tighten early release rules but men jailed over PC Harper’s death can be freed, 4 August).
The government’s latest early-release measures may be necessary to prevent our prisons from becoming completely overwhelmed, but they are surely a symptom of a much deeper failure. We appear to be operating a revolving-door policy: tougher sentencing fills the prisons, overcrowding forces early release, public concern produces calls for tougher sentencing, and the cycle begins again. It is rather like baling water out of a sinking boat without ever fixing the hole.
[ more...]
Justice
Andy Burnham’s government is “urgently” identifying any grooming gang perpetrators who may still be eligible for early prison release after concerns were raised about a potential loophole in the system.
The prime minister has “personally intervened” after men convicted of assaulting children in Bradford were expected to be freed from prison early despite a promise earlier this week that they would remain behind bars.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The proportion of criminals who reoffend has hit a record high, according to new data also showing that more than 70,000 prisoners have been freed under Labour’s early release scheme.
Nearly 25,000 adult criminals have committed more than 127,000 new offences since July 2024, according to Ministry of Justice figures. This means that the reoffending rate for all adult criminals — including those not previously imprisoned — was 31.9 per cent, up from 29.2 per cent the previous year and the highest since the data started to be recorded, in 2013.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England has opted to keep interest rates at 3.75%, amid uncertainty around inflationary pressures over the coming months.
[ more...]
Technology
Facial recognition cameras being rolled out in Nottinghamshire will come with strict controls, police have said.
Marked vans will be deployed in public places and will compare those walking past with a "watchlist" of individuals either wanted for crimes or subject to banning orders or reported missing.
Any matches made by the system will be verified by officers on the ground and all scans deleted within seconds, the force said.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Armed officers will be deployed to Britain’s largest Pride festival this weekend following the Berlin attack.
Wes Streeting, the Defence Secretary, condemned the “absolutely horrific” van and stabbing attack at the German parade, which killed one person and injured at least 29 others.
Abdul Ballout, the suspect who had suspected links to the Islamic State terror group, was shot dead by police on Sunday after being on the run for nearly 24 hours.
[ more...]
Pensions
PoliceOracle.com can exclusively reveal that the Treasury move in May had the potential to affect 30,000 serving police officers in England and Wales. Claire Sweeting and Minia Bennie report.
This year the Government picked the pockets of tens of thousands of soon to be police officer pensioners by introducing an unannounced overnight change to commutation factors.
The change – affecting those on the 1987 Police Pension Scheme – was triggered by a Treasury decision to increase the SCAPE discount rate, with revised commutation factors issued on May 19… and applied with immediate effect.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have cost British police an estimated £631 million since 2020, a think tank has claimed.
The report by Policy Exchange estimated that forces and police and crime commissioners have incurred £431 million in manpower costs of training, £177 million on dedicated inclusion roles and £23 million on external consultancy since May 2020.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The British Muslim Trust has reported a significant rise in attacks on mosques, with incidents occurring every five days. The Trust has called for the £40 million security fund to be devolved to local areas to expedite support for affected mosques.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The number of knife homicides recorded by police in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level in 35 years, with 176 incidents reported in 2025/26, a 14 per cent decrease from the previous year. This has contributed to an overall reduction in homicide rates, with the total number of recorded homicides falling to 499, marking the lowest level seen this century.
[ more...]
Justice
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced a pause on the early prisoner release scheme set to begin in September, which would have seen around 6,000 prisoners released, including violent offenders. Burnham stated that public safety is his top priority and that an urgent review will be conducted before any changes are implemented.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Football clubs have been urged to contribute more to the cost of match policing to ease the burden on taxpayers.
The current model whereby clubs are not responsible for policing expenses outside stadiums "simply cannot continue", according to Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the UK's football policing lead.
Statistics released on Thursday, external by the Home Office show incidents were reported at 1,644 matches last season in England and Wales - the highest figure since the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) started collecting the data in 2017-18.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Inflation dropped to 2.6%, in positive news for a new government promising to cut living costs, but ministers face a warning that the “honeymoon period will be short-lived” as prices are set to rise again.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
In his first speech after being appointed chancellor earlier this week, John Healey outlined his five priorities, and said that he and prime minister Andy Burnham had discussed how to meet the government’s fiscal rules “in lockstep”, including building a buffer for economic uncertainty.
Speaking to Treasury staff, he said the challenges Britain faces are “still deep”, with low growth, high debt and overstretched public finances amid international threats.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Commissioner Pete O’Doherty said fraud and cyber crime now account for almost half of all crime and called for a faster transformation of the national response through closer collaboration with industry and government.
“We now stand at a critical crossroads,” he said. “Fraud and cyber crime account for nearly 50 per cent of all crime, and the policing response must keep pace with the scale and sophistication of the threats.
“We cannot wait another 20 years. The next decade must deliver the fastest transformation in the response to fraud this country has ever seen.”
The City of London Police has led the national policing response to fraud since 2006, when the Home Office accepted recommendations that a specialist force should coordinate investigations into complex financial crime.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have cost British police an estimated £631 million since 2020, a think tank has claimed.
The report by Policy Exchange estimated that forces and police and crime commissioners have incurred £431 million in manpower costs of training, £177 million on dedicated inclusion roles and £23 million on external consultancy since May 2020.
It said that police budgeting ranged from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary’s £861,000 “Inclusion Matters” scheme to smaller costs such as Stonewall training, courses and an £8,000 film and poetry project.
[ more...]
Prisons
Andy Burnham has been urged to convert at least one women’s prison into a jail for men to reduce overcrowding and the early releases of criminals.
Prison campaigners, prison officers’ leaders and senior Tories said the Prime Minister should consider the change as part of a series of alternative measures to avoid releasing more offenders from jail early.
They said he should adopt approaches pioneered by his previous Greater Manchester authority to steer women away from prison for lower-level offences, which have reduced the number being jailed in the region by 55 per cent in eight years.
[ more...]
Justice
A woman who was raped as a child by her brother has urged Andy Burnham to permanently ban sex offenders from early release after learning her sibling was set to be freed as soon as Christmas.
Charlotte McQueen, 29, said the Prime Minister’s review of the early release scheme was not enough as she demanded he “commit” to ensuring no sex offenders and violent criminals would leave prison early under sentencing reforms.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The number of homicides involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded annually by police in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level for 35 years.
Some 176 knife homicides were logged by forces in 2025/26, down 14% from 204 in the previous 12 months.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation dropped to 2.6 per cent in June, the lowest rate in 15 months,
as households benefitted from food and fuel prices falling.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Neighbourhood crime across London has fallen by 14 per cent over the past 12 months, according to new figures released by the Metropolitan Police, marking more than 35,000 fewer offences across the capital.
The latest data, covering the 12 months to June, shows significant reductions in the crimes that most directly affect residents, businesses and visitors, including theft, robbery and vehicle-related offences.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Neighbourhood crime in London has fallen by 15% over the past year, according to new figures from City Hall and the Metropolitan Police.
The fall was driven by declines in theft, personal robbery and burglary, particularly in central London, where police have stepped up efforts to tackle phone snatching and street crime.
The figures, covering the 12 months to June 2026, come amid a wider debate over crime and London's reputation, and the mayor of London's push to challenge online disinformation and criticism of the capital.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Domestic abuse incidents during the 2026 FIFA World Cup were at their highest recorded level compared with similar tournaments, the UK Football Policing Unit has said.
Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the Football Policing National Lead in charge of policing football in the UK, said the World Cup and associated alcohol consumption had led to an overall increase in reported incidents.
In total, 384 domestic violence incidents were reported during the tournament - representing 17 per cent of the 2,322 incidents reported.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Football clubs have been urged to contribute more to the cost of match policing to ease the burden on taxpayers.
The current model whereby clubs are not responsible for policing expenses outside stadiums "simply cannot continue", according to Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the UK's football policing lead.
Statistics released on Thursday, external by the Home Office show incidents were reported at 1,644 matches last season in England and Wales - the highest figure since the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) started collecting the data in 2017-18.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The new chancellor John Healey faces some difficult choices, experts have warned, after the latest ONS data highlighted public finances on a knife edge despite a fall in borrowing in the last month.
[ more...]
Justice
The widow of PC Andrew Harper has said it is "deplorable" that two of the three men convicted over his death are being considered for early release from prison.
PC Harper, who was 28, was fatally injured after being dragged for a mile behind the men's car along a country road while responding to a burglary in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019.
He was trying to stop the group towing away a stolen quad bike.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police have dropped all charges against the rider of a legal e-bike which was destroyed by police, after they wrongly believed it was an illegal electric motorbike.
West Midlands Police had stopped Matin Zandi in Birmingham on 24 April and issued a fixed penalty notice for riding without insurance.
The £6,000 cargo bike, which Zandi had rented as part of a scheme funded by the city council, was caught up in a police sting targeting food delivery riders on illegal e-bikes.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Some 461 officers were dismissed or had their contracts terminated in 2025/26, up from 426 in the previous 12 months.
It is the third year in a row that a new record has been set, according to data published by the Home Office.
The number, which is based on headcount, has been climbing steadily since the start of the decade, when it stood at 164 in 2019/20.
The five largest forces in England and Wales together account for just over half of all dismissals in 2025/26: the Metropolitan Police (168 dismissals, or 36.4% of the total), Greater Manchester (21, or 4.6%), West Midlands (19, or 4.1%), West Yorkshire (15, or 3.3%) and Thames Valley (11, or 2.4%).
[ more...]
Justice
The potential early release of two of police officer Andrew Harper's killers is a "shock", says the police and crime commissioner for Harper's local area.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has appointed his first Cabinet, with John Healey named Chancellor, Ed Miliband becoming Foreign Secretary and Yvette Cooper taking over as Health Secretary. The reshuffle also includes Wes Streeting as Defence Secretary, Angela Rayner as Housing Secretary and Jonathan Reynolds as Business Secretary, alongside a number of new appointments across government.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Scotland Yard is planning to scrap its entire roads policing unit, prompting fears London will become even more dangerous for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
The Roads and Transport Policing Command (RTPC) could be axed and the responsibilities spread across other teams as part of reforms across the Metropolitan Police to save money.
[ more...]
Police Finances
An investigation into a £65m budget hole at South Yorkshire Police has found there were "misjudgements, weaknesses and failures" in key accounting policies.
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard launched the investigation in 2024 when he assumed responsibilities for the police and crime commissioner role.
His finance officers highlighted "serious accounting omissions and budgetary errors, which had gone undetected in previous financial years", although there was no indication of fraud.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Andy Burnham is the new Prime Minister – but does that mean a new relationship between the Government and the country’s police officers… or will it be meet the new boss… same as the old boss? Minia Bennie reviews his track record on law and order.
[ more...]
Police Reform
The ambitious proposals for structural change set out in the Government’s police reform white paper will see transformation on a huge scale, affecting 43 forces across England and Wales as well as the NCA, ROCUs, CT policing, and multiple national units; Martin Leven, who as CIO of the Scottish Police Services Authority led the tech strategy for the merger of eight forces to create Police Scotland, highlights some of the key lessons from that process, and the steps that can be taken to avoid the main pitfalls.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Regional organised crime units (ROCUs) are increasingly using their specialist capabilities to tackle online child sexual abuse, domestic abuse and exploitation alongside their traditional focus on serious organised crime, police leaders have said.
[ more...]
Prisons
A man who died in prison two months after being jailed for his part in disorder outside a hotel housing asylum seekers had previously tried to take his own life while on remand, a fellow inmate has told an inquest.
Peter Lynch, 61, died from hanging at HMP Moorland, Doncaster, on 19 October 2024 after being convicted of violent disorder during anti-immigration protests in Manvers, Rotherham, in August that year.
Before he was transferred to HMP Moorland, he was sent to HMP Doncaster where he shared a cell with Leonard Tyler.
In a statement read to the jury at Doncaster Coroner's Court earlier, Tyler said he felt he "had to look after" Lynch, because it was his first time in custody.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Met Police is exploring proposals to axe its roads policing unit and share the team's responsibilities across other departments in a cost-cutting exercise.
The proposed move has led to a wide backlash from road experts and politicians amid fears it could ramp up crime on the capital’s roads, making them even more unsafe for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The former boss of West Midlands Police has been given a payout worth £57,800 after he retired, following criticism of a decision to ban Israeli football fans from a match against Aston Villa.
Craig Guildford received the payment for "loss of office" on top of his £220,800 salary according to figures from the most recent set of accounts, external published by the force.
The document shows Guildford received a total pay package of £344,500 in the 2025/2026 financial year, which included a pension contribution of £65,900.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Police, who is suspended on full pay over allegations of gross misconduct, is set to leave his role.
Gloucestershire's police and crime commissioner confirmed Rod Hansen would leave the force when his contract expired at the end of July.
Hansen was suspended from the six-figure role in October 2024 following allegations relating to a data breach. He denies any wrongdoing.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The stupidest game in politics is predicting a new cabinet, because it is literally one person’s call - Burnham’s tomorrow - and weirdly he hasn’t shared his almost-decisions with me.
Also, even if - when he is PM tomorrow - Burnham thinks he knows precisely who he wants in which job, he’ll be aware that the picks of his predecessors had an annoying habit of saying “no thank you”. Best laid plans, and all that.
In this instance, several Labour MPs who 100% will be in the cabinet have told me - and I believe them - that even now, just hours before the cabinet will be announced, they have no clue what Burnham will offer them.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Counter terror police are reviewing the security arrangements of former MPs as part of the Ann Widdecombe murder investigation, The i Paper understands.
The former Conservative MP and Reform spokesperson was found dead at her home in the village of Haytor in Devon on Thursday, 9 July.
Police believe she was attacked at around 12.30pm on Wednesday 8 July and the investigation is now being led by Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE).
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A former detective has become the first Reform UK candidate to be elected as a police and crime commissioner.
Colin Sutton, who led several high profile murder investigations during his 30-year-career, was confirmed as the new Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Norfolk on Friday after 32,647 people voted for him.
Sutton won with a majority of 14,299 with the Conservative party candidate, Matthew Taylor, in second place.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy returned to growth in May, despite the impact of the Iran war on energy costs, official figures show.
The Office for National Statistics said GDP rose 0.1% in May, in line with economists’ forecasts, after a 0.1% decline in April.
Despite April’s dip, the economy appears to have been more resilient in the face of rising energy costs linked to the Middle East conflict than some analysts had feared.
[ more...]
Police Mergers
The police and crime commissioner for Hertfordshire has called on the government to abandon proposals for larger regional police forces after a public consultation found strong opposition to the idea among respondents.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Andy Burnham has secured 349 nominations from Labour MPs, making him the sole candidate for the Labour leadership and the next Prime Minister.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Local Government has told the next Prime Minister to allow councils to increase council tax by as much as they want. The recommendation comes in a report into how fiscal devolution is vital to delivering economic growth.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Trevor Rees and Jane Mudd were hailed for their expertise that spans financial governance, community safety and policing oversight.
The appointments will see Mr Rees join as a non-executive director and chair of the Finance and Performance Committee. Ms Mudd becomes a non-executive director in a seat reserved for Police and Crime Commissioners.
College Chair, Lord Herbert of South Downs, welcomed the new appointments, adding: “Trevor brings a wealth of financial and governance expertise that will be invaluable to the College, while Jane’s experience as a Police and Crime Commissioner and her deep roots in community safety and public service make her a real asset.
[ more...]
Technology
The announcement comes after the Home Office accepted key recommendations from Jonathan Fisher KC's Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences, which included legislating AI to speed up how evidence is reviewed.
The Home Office confirmed that artificial intelligence – or AI – will be used by officers to review and summarise evidence. It said new legislation to allow forces to use technology during the disclosure process will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.
Under current guidance, which was introduced in the mid-Nineties before iPhones, Google and Facebook existed, case files were often contained to a single box. However, in 2026, some investigations now have over half a million e-books’ worth of data, with the average fraud case containing more than four million documents.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A serious review of MPs' security is needed following the death of Ann Widdecombe, Andy Burnham has said.
The former Greater Manchester mayor, who is expected to become prime minister next Monday, said politics had "darkened" in the decade he had been away from Westminster.
He said he was "shocked to see how much security now has to be in place", but added that it may need to be increased further still.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The International Monetary Fund has upgraded the UK’s economic growth forecasts, predicting it will be the third fastest-growing economy in the G7.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Officers fighting crime in their communities put their lives at risk every day and are repeatedly exposed to traumatic incidents in high-pressure environments.
Around 150,000 clinical psychological risk assessments and ‘lighter touch’ mental health checks will be available each year for officers and staff in operational roles, signposting them quickly to the best support when they need it most.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces across England are to get a £251m funding boost to help protect Jewish communities following a rise in antisemitic attacks, the government has announced.
The Metropolitan Police will receive £86m to recruit about 300 extra officers to help increase police presence in Jewish neighbourhoods, and around synagogues, schools and community centres.
The package is in addition to the £25m emergency fund announced in April after the Golders Green attack. The fund was described by the Met at the time as "one-off funding" which had retrospectively covered the cost of surging officers into north-west London.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will set out on Monday the legal steps she will take to deport the freed ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang.
Shabir Ahmed, jailed for 22 years in 2012 for multiple counts of child sexual offences including rape, was released from prison on licence earlier this month.
Calls have mounted across the political spectrum for the deportation of Ahmed, who was stripped of his British citizenship following his conviction, leaving him with only Pakistani nationality.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces across England are to get a £251m funding boost to help protect Jewish communities following a rise in antisemitic attacks, the government has announced.
The Metropolitan Police will receive £86m to recruit about 300 extra officers to help increase police presence in Jewish neighbourhoods, and around synagogues, schools and community centres.
It comes after a series of antisemitic attacks in London, including the stabbing of two men in Golders Green in April, and the raising of the national terror threat level from substantial to severe.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the fund would deliver a "step change in protection" for Jewish communities.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police officers who put themselves in harm’s way to protect their communities will get access to expanded crucial services to help them deal with the demands of working in dangerous and traumatic environments.
Officers fighting crime in their communities put their lives at risk every day and are repeatedly exposed to traumatic incidents in high-pressure environments. The consequences can be extremely damaging for their physical and mental health. Post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions are highly prevalent amongst frontline officers.
Around 150,000 clinical psychological risk assessments and ‘lighter touch’ mental health checks will be available each year for officers and staff in operational roles, signposting them quickly to the best support when they need it most.
[ more...]
Police Demand
In the shadow of Bradford City's famous Valley Parade football stadium a crime scene is in place, with investigators sifting through thousands of tonnes of illegally dumped household and commercial waste.
Sandwiched between Midland Road and the railway line, the enormous pile of rubbish was reported to the Environment Agency (EA) on 1 July.
Since then officers from the EA, Bradford Council, West Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service have been at the scene gathering evidence, as they try to work out who is responsible.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A new study highlights the range of both organisational and operational stressors that are having a damaging psychological impact on UK senior investigating officers, with researchers warning that unless forces embark on a process of significant reform of structures, some of these challenges will become “terminal”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The UK is in the midst of a “drug-driving epidemic”, campaigners have warned, after the number of recorded offences overtook those for drink-driving for the first time.
DVLA figures showed that 30,707 drivers received penalty points for drug-driving last year, compared with 29,769 for drink-driving.
Drivers aged between 17 and 24 were over-represented in the drug-driving figures, responsible for almost a fifth of all recorded offences despite making up only 6 per cent of licence holders.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Home Secretary is set to change the law to allow the deportation of a Rochdale grooming gang leader who was released from prison last week.
Shabana Mahmood will set out plans on Monday to amend a 1971 law preventing the removal of Shabir Ahmed, 73, from the UK, ITV News understands.
Ahmed was released on July 2 after serving 14 years since his conviction in 2012 for rape and sexual offences against girls, some as young as 12.
He had been sentenced to 19 years in prison.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Home Secretary has today (7 July 2026) confirmed Sir Andy Marsh QPM as the government’s preferred candidate for the role of HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary in England and Wales and Chief Inspector of Fire & Rescue in England (HMCI).
Sir Andy Marsh has been Chief Executive of the College of Policing since September 2021.
Sir Andy has over 30 years’ policing experience, having joined Avon and Somerset Police in 1987 and rising to senior leadership roles including Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary and Avon and Somerset Police.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
After just six months in operation, two police forces have found that using artificial intelligence to assist non-emergency calls is already reducing pressure on control rooms as demand grows.
Thames Valley Police along with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary have adopted Bobbi, an agentic AI tool that answers non-emergency calls by drawing on a ‘walled garden’ of content owned by these two forces. Chief Digital and Information Officer, Mike Lattanzio spoke about the impact this tool is having since its introduction on the forces’ websites in November last year.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The finding sits within a wider verdict from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), which told the force it must urgently improve how it investigates crime and safeguards vulnerable people.
While the force has a central rape and serious sexual offences (RASO) team, inspectors found its role is advisory and supportive, offering early guidance on arrest, advice on complex cases and regular clinics, rather than taking on primary investigation of most cases.
The report states: “In some areas, the force has reported that units can have high levels of investigators who aren’t fully qualified. The force doesn’t have a dedicated rape investigation unit. So often, officers assigned to rape and serious sexual offences cases aren’t qualified, and, as these cases are complex, may not have enough experience.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Cambridgeshire Police said it seized more than 450 e-scooters between April 2025 and March 2026.
It also confiscated 126 e-bikes and issued about 180 fines during the same period.
It came as compensation paid to people injured in incidents involving e-scooters and e-bikes in the UK has topped £100m over the past seven years, according to the Motor Insurers' Bureau.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Inflation in the UK is set to ease back to target levels faster than previously expected, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suggested.
UK consumer price index (CPI) inflation was 2.8% in May but is widely expected to increase in the coming months.
In its report, the IMF said: “The global economy as a whole has, so far, weathered the shock from the [Iran] war better than feared.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police leadership is not consistently of a high enough standard and requires a fundamental overhaul, a landmark independent review has warned.
The report by the Police Leadership Commission, published on Monday, found the system for identifying and developing leaders was too weak, with chief constable roles in England and Wales often attracting a single suitable candidate.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police have warned people watching England's World Cup clash with Mexico that it will be carrying out roadside drink-driving tests on Monday.
The game was due to kick off at 01:00 BST in Mexico City, and some pubs and bars in the region were expected to stay open late to allow fans to watch Thomas Tuchel's men attempt to win a place in the quarter-finals.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: "With the match taking place later in the evening, some people may continue drinking into the early hours.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Fewer than one in 40 vehicle thefts last year resulted in the suspect being charged, official data show.
From a total of 114,973 cases, only 2,800 offences involving the theft of or from a vehicle led to the suspect being charged or summoned to court last year, an analysis of the Home Office figures reveals.
That means more than 100,000 victims of vehicle thefts have been left without their cases being solved and the criminals being brought to justice.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg ahead of the report’s release, Lord Blunkett said the service “isn’t good enough” and that morale and motivation across policing needed a “reset”.
He noted that none of England and Wales’ 43 police forces were rated “outstanding” for leadership in the most recent round of inspections. Almost a third of forces were assessed as requiring improvement, and two as inadequate. Separately, the former home secretary said eight serving or former chief constables are currently under disciplinary investigation or awaiting the outcome of one.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Recruitment for a new Chief Constable of West Midlands Police has began.
Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster has opened recruitment for Craig Guildford's permanent successor following his retirement in January. Guilford stepped down three months on from a contentious decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa in Birmingham.
Acting Chief Constable Scott Green has previously said he will apply for the role.
The PCC said he has written to every eligible police officer across the country holding the rank of Assistant Chief Constable or above to invite their interest in the post.
[ more...]
Justice
Violence, illicit drugs, and organised crime in prisons are set to be tackled head-on, as the government launches a major independent review aimed at improving safety, security, and rehabilitation outcomes across the UK prison estate.
Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd has been appointed to lead the review, which comes after ministers intervened to stabilise what they described as a prison system on the brink of collapse. Immediate measures taken over the past two years are now beginning to show early signs of progress.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Shabana Mahmood’s proposals for police force mergers could be put at risk if Andy Burnham takes over as prime minister, it has emerged.
The Labour leadership front-runner is understood to be sceptical about the plans to merge police forces to reduce the current 43 forces in England and Wales to between 12 and 20 larger regional constabularies.
Ms Mahmood has commissioned a review, headed by Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe, the former Met commissioner, to produce a blueprint for the new policing structure.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Nearly two-thirds of victims and witnesses of anti-social behaviour (ASB) did not report it to police, councils, housing providers or any other agency in the past three years, according to a new survey.
The figure has risen from 56% in 2025 to 63% this year, raising concerns over public confidence in reporting systems.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Seven candidates will stand in the election for Norfolk's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
Polling day will be Thursday, 16 July, with the votes being counted the next day.
The election follows the resignation of the previous PCC, Sarah Taylor, who stood down with immediate effect because of an illness in her family.
The post of PCC is due to be abolished in two years' time as part of the government's plans for devolution which will see the creation of a directly elected mayor for Norfolk and Suffolk.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Most public bodies have reported feeling the budget squeeze in recent years - but that was not the case for one police force.
Suffolk Constabulary forecast a £4.2m underspend in the last financial year, meaning it will have more money than expected.
Could it result in cheaper council tax bills for Suffolk residents? And how did the underspend happen?
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The 2024-25 Whole of Government Accounts have received a disclaimed audit opinion from the UK spending watchdog for the third year in a row due to lack of audit assurance in English local government.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Office for National Statistics has reported a fall in the UK’s unemployment rate with figures also showing new recruits in payrolled work at their lowest level for five years and private sector basic pay awards struggling.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Western Europeans believe crime is rising in their country, according to a survey, despite long-term overall crime rates falling across the region since the mid-1990s.
The YouGov poll of Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found most countries trusted their national police, led by Denmark where 74% of respondents said they had a lot or a fair amount of confidence in police nationally.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has called on the Government to introduce a multi-year police pay settlement, including a minimum seven per cent consolidated pay rise this year and in each of the following two years.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Inflation has remained at 2.8 per cent, according to the Office of National Statistics, as low food prices helped prevent an increase in the rate.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Illegal mini-marts, barbers and vape shops could be shut for up to a year under new powers announced by the government, following lengthy investigative reporting by BBC News into organised crime on British high streets.
We have exposed drug gangs, child sexual exploitation, money laundering and immigration crime linked to shops selling illegal cigarettes, vapes and drugs.
As the law stands in England and Wales, authorities can only close a shop for three months, with an option to extend closure to six months using anti-social behaviour legislation. The government's planned change will double the potential closure time.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
West Mercia Police has announced more police officers are set to be moved into neighbourhood policing roles as part of a force-wide drive to "increase visible policing".
It said 14 officers would be reassigned to neighbourhood teams in six locations across Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire.
The move was part of a joint commitment by Chief Constable Richard Cooper and Police and Crime Commissioner John Campion, who said residents regularly raised the importance of seeing officers on the beat.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Rules requiring public bodies such as schools and hospitals to promote equality when making decisions should be scrapped, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will say in a speech on Tuesday.
In what the party says is the first step in a wider programme to "restore common sense", Badenoch will argue that the Public Sector Equality Duty has been used to promote "dangerous and divisive agendas".
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces in England and Wales have been put on standby to respond to a potential summer of disorder in the wake of Henry Nowak’s murder.
In an exclusive article for The Telegraph, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said officers had formulated a national plan to respond to “widespread disorder should it arise to keep the public safe”.
“This is a new phenomenon which should also make us pause and reflect about how we got here and how to respond,” said Mr Stephens, one of Britain’s most senior police chiefs.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Victims and survivors of terrorism will receive around the clock support to help them navigate recovery through a dedicated support hub, which opens on 1 June.
The hub will provide specialist, trauma-informed support for anyone affected by a terrorist incident, ensuring victims can access the help they need at any stage of their recovery.
Anyone can visit the support hub at Support Hub for Victims of Terrorism or by contacting their free helpline on 08 08 16 89 111.
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Police Finances
Funding for the Prevent programme has plummeted since the pandemic despite Britain’s growing problem with extremism, according to figures that show parts of London and Birmingham have faced the biggest cuts.
The amount spent by the Home Office on the government’s counterterrorism strategy fell from £41 million in 2021-22 to £25 million this financial year, a 39 per cent drop.
This money is allocated to local authorities facing the highest extremism threat and is separate from funding for local authorities to deliver their statutory duty to help prevent people from being drawn into terrorism, which is delivered through existing budgets.
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Recruitment and Retention
New rules that came into effect last week mean a police officer retiring today will receive a lump sum that is almost 5 per cent less than an officer who retired before May 22, despite having sacrificed the same amount of monthly pension income to get it.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Police and crime commissioners have warned that government plans to restructure policing could weaken democratic accountability and distance forces from the communities they serve.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Surrey Police says it has restructured how its divisions are set up as part of plans to modernise the force.
Earlier this month, it moved to a new east and west arrangement to replace its former three divisions. following a review of how it operates.
The move aims to reflect government plans for devolution and local authority reorganisation, which would see the creation of two new councils for East and West Surrey in April 2027.
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Recruitment and Retention
A petition has been launched calling for plans to deploy private security patrols in several towns in Leicestershire and Rutland to be dropped.
Leicestershire and Rutland's Reform UK police and crime commissioner (PCC) Rupert Matthews said he wanted to recruit "street wardens" from security firms in a bid to prevent crimes like shoplifting and anti-social behaviour.
The petition urges the PCC to use the money - about £2m - set aside for the scheme to employ more police officers.
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Police Demand
The Government has announced a new £30m High Street organised crime unit following a BBC investigation into illegal activities linked to shop fronts. The unit, which will be overseen by the National Crime Agency and work in concert with trading standards, aims to tackle serious and organised crime, including money laundering and drug trafficking, which has reportedly seen £1bn laundered through High Street stores annually.
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Police Finances
Funding aimed at stopping children from committing crime or needing to be remanded in custody if they are accused of offences will be transferred to the Welsh government.
Welsh ministers in Cardiff will be put in charge of funding for some youth justice initiatives by the UK government from April 2027.
It stops significantly short of handing over full powers over criminal justice but will be the first time that Welsh government will have a say within the system since the Senedd's predecessor, the National Assembly, was established in 1999.
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Police Finances
The two newly approved helicopters will be delivered through the existing procurement programme by Airbus Helicopters
In 2023, Airbus Helicopters UK was awarded the contract to supply seven new H135 helicopters as part of a national programme to replace the existing NPAS aviation fleet. The programme is governed by the National Strategic Board, and delivered in partnership with BlueLight Commercial, the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The Government is introducing measures to combat youth crime in England, including earlier intervention and stricter actions against parents. A Youth Justice White Paper published today outlines plans for new Youth Intervention Courts and expanded Parenting Orders, aiming to address the root causes of offending and reduce the number of young people in custody.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Business leaders have warned that crime is becoming an increasingly “serious barrier” to growing Britain’s economy amid a rise in shoplifting, fraud and cyber-attacks against companies. The British Chambers of Commerce called on the Government to provide “a step change in the support businesses can count on” as it said two-fifths of companies had experienced some form of crime in the past year.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded its forecast for the UK's growth this year, but warned the Iran war and "domestic uncertainty" could hit the economy.
The growth estimate has been upgraded to 1% from 0.8% for 2026 by the influential body, which said last month that the UK would be hit hardest by the Iran war among the world's advanced economies.
In its latest forecast, it said the UK "remained resilient" but added a prolonged conflict in the Middle East risked hitting growth and resulting in "higher energy and food prices".
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Latest official figures show the UK economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the first three months of the year.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
King Charles unveils government agenda for the next year as PM faces leadership threat from within Labour
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Police Reform
Ms Spurrell said "Improving the public’s trust and confidence in policing is critical – a robust system of accountability is key to that. The abolition of the PCC model of a single identifiable figure advocating on behalf of local communities in favour of anonymous, invisible Policing and Crime Boards risks weakening that accountability in a system where, increasingly, local council tax payers fund policing".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police and crime commissioner (PCC) Rupert Matthews has set out plans to deploy private security patrols in towns across Leicestershire and Rutland.
Matthews said he wanted to recruit between 20 and 30 street marshals from private security firms as part of a scheme, costing about £2m, aimed at preventing crimes like shoplifting and anti-social behaviour.
The Reform UK commissioner told the BBC the marshals would not have any powers but would be a "visible and uniformed" presence.
The Leicestershire Police Federation said it was "entirely against" the use of private security and felt the PCC's funding should be spent on police officers rather than security staff.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Biggest crime-fighting shake up in decades as police gain new powers to tackle local crime as the landmark Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent.
[ more...]
Police Demand
A further £25 million will be invested to increase security for Jewish communities after the suspected terror attack in north London, the Government has said.
The funding will be aimed at boosting police patrols and protections around synagogues, schools and community centres.
Legislation creating powers to target people and organisations acting on behalf of state-sponsored groups will also be “fast-tracked” in the coming weeks, the Government said.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
There’s no great surprise in that decision by the Bank of England to hold interest rates at 3.75% – it was widely predicted by analysts.
But now every page of the committee’s report and every word spoken by the Bank’s governor will be pored over by the markets.
Any indication of what the members of the rate-setting committee might do at future meetings can shift their expectations.
In turn, that can have an impact on what lenders charge borrowers, and what banks and building societies offer savers.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Up to a half of convenience stores and a quarter of fast-food takeaways are linked to organised crime in some areas, trading standards officers have said.
Research has identified two “corridors of crime”, one in coastal towns across Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex and a second from Liverpool on the west coast to Hull and Grimsby.
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute and the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, a trade body, mapped high streets with clusters of “dodgy shops” across the country.
[ more...]
Police Reform
A recent report into how organisations can maximise value from their technology investments highlights the paradox that many pour investment into new and shiny technology without addressing the impact of the legacy systems that are the biggest barrier to effective digital transformation; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth says the report has clear messages for policing, particularly in the UK where major reform is on the horizon.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Jess Davies - West Midlands Police Federation (WMPF) chair and former response officer - raised concerns she had over the role during an appearance at a conference last week.
Speaking at the National Response Policing Conference in Manchester, Ms Davies said there appeared to be “no thought to the fact” that response officers “actually need to deal with each job once they arrive at it”.
As a result, “no consideration” is given to delivering a “quality service and dealing with incidents thoroughly”.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces do not risk failure because officers lack courage or dedication – they risk failure when leadership, governance and financial grip are not strong enough. Finance leaders, who work behind the scenes, play a vital role in setting police forces up for success. With forces undergoing wide-scale reform, it is crucial that police finance leaders remain focused on effective and steady leadership.
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s (CIPFA) Achieving Financial Excellence in Policing (AFEP) programme recently hosted its first summit for police finance leaders. One theme that became abundantly clear during the summit is that strong financial leadership in policing will be crucial over the coming months and years.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The initiative, described as a “landmark” programme, will gather detailed feedback from residents on their experiences of policing, perceptions of safety, and priorities for local services. It forms part of a wider effort to rebuild public confidence in West Midlands Police and shape future policing strategies.
The survey will be conducted through face-to-face, door-to-door engagement, with participants asked about trust in the police, satisfaction with services, and concerns around crime and community safety.
According to the PCC’s office, the findings will directly inform how policing is delivered across the West Midlands, feeding into both operational priorities and longer-term policy decisions.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Every morning I receive an email I wish I never had to read. It’s a daily log of crime and security incidents from across our 1,400 Sainsbury’s stores. A snapshot of the reality of modern retail in Britain.
In the past week alone, one of our colleagues was threatened with a screwdriver and a security officer was punched in the face. This is not “low level” crime and it is not victimless. Shoplifting is a national emergency for the 2.8 million hardworking people in retail. The Usdaw union’s Freedom From Fear survey shows that last year nearly four in five retail workers were abused, threatened or assaulted doing their job.
[ more...]
Police Reform
In this second conversation with Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell, the focus shifts to the work of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners during one of the biggest periods of reform policing has faced in years. As APCC Chair, Spurrell explains how the organisation has been working closely with ministers, civil servants and PCC colleagues to influence the Police Reform White Paper, protect key principles around governance and represent members’ priorities as the detail begins to take shape.
The interview also looks at the pressure this creates for a small national team still supporting PCCs with the day-to-day realities of policing. From governance, legislation and reform timetables to victims, volunteers and rural crime, Spurrell sets out how the APCC is balancing business as usual with a fast-moving reform programme — and why getting the detail right now will matter for policing and the public for years to come.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Following the recent launch of the UK Government’s new Road Safety Strategy, former senior police officer Ruth Purdie, CEO of the Road Safety Trust, spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the need for more support for policing’s role in preventing and detecting crime on the roads, alongside “system-wide” change, better sharing of best practice and greater use of technology, if the strategy is to be implemented effectively.
[ more...]
Justice
In response to the findings of the fifth annual report from the national Domestic Homicide Project, the APCC’s Joint Leads for Victims, Clare Moody and Matthew Scott, said:
“The Domestic Homicide Project does vital work in helping improve our collective knowledge and awareness of domestic abuse related deaths, but we must remember that behind each statistic is an individual who has lost their life to abuse. With a history of domestic abuse known by the police and other agencies in so many cases, the need and opportunity for earlier intervention is clear.
“The report highlights suspected victim suicide following domestic abuse as the most recorded type of death for a third year, and a prevalence of mental ill health among both victims and perpetrators. This underlines the importance of better understanding domestic abuse related deaths.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Cocaine, cannabis, laughing gas and prescription pills are being offered for sale in mini-marts on UK High Streets, a BBC investigation can reveal.
They were readily offered to our undercover researchers who secretly filmed in shops across four neighbouring West Midlands towns.
One street we visited was described as "lawless" by an anonymous law enforcement source.
Just a few miles away, in a town where we found illegal drugs being sold in shops, legitimate businesses told us they had been intimidated by gangs - and witnessed knife and gun violence.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation rose to 3.3 per cent in March, driven by higher fuel and transport costs, according to the Office for National Statistics. Rising oil prices linked to the Iran conflict are expected to keep inflation elevated, adding pressure on households and the wider economy.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK inflation rate rose to 3.3% in the year to March, after the US-Israel war with Iran caused the largest jump in petrol and diesel prices in over three years.
The rise from 3% in the year to February was "largely due to increased fuel prices", while airfares and food also contributed, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The figures provide the first official look at the impact of the Middle East conflict on the cost of living in the UK.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has warned that boosting defence spending may mean cuts to other areas, including welfare. She said the Government wants to avoid further tax rises or borrowing as it prioritises national security.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK will be the hardest hit of the world’s advanced economies as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Data from 22 police forces shows spending has more than tripled since the ban came into force in 2024.
[ more...]
Police Finances
£5 million funding boost to increase deployment of highly trained officers to identify and disrupt criminals and terrorists in key public spaces.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
More than 3,000 additional police officers and police community support officers have been deployed into neighbourhood policing roles in less than a year, new figures confirm, putting the government’s pledge two months ahead of schedule.
[ more...]
Police Demand
More needs to be done to clamp down on criminals increasing use of e-scooters and e-bikes, a police and crime commissioner (PCC) said.
Matthew Barber, the Thames Valley's PCC, said officers have seized 1,200 of the vehicles in the region so far this year and 112 in the past month.
The force said criminals use of them was particularly notable in Bracknell and Thatcham, Berkshire, and officers are using a new forensic spray to track them down rather than chasing them through the streets.
[ more...]
Technology
Met police in talks to buy Palantir AI tech for use in criminal investigations
Exclusive: Internal concerns over allowing US firm linked to ICE and Israeli military to process highly sensitive data
Robert Booth UK technology editor
Wed 22 Apr 2026 15.00 BST
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The Metropolitan police has held talks with Palantir that could lead to the London force buying the US spy-tech company’s AI technology to automate intelligence analysis for criminal investigations, the Guardian has learned.
Palantir, whose software is used by Donald Trump’s ICE immigration enforcement programme and the Israeli military, demonstrated its systems to senior officers in the intelligence division at the UK’s largest police force last month. Intelligence staff have been tasked with finding intelligence systems that AI could automate to increase productivity.
The talks have created internal concerns about allowing a controversial US company to process highly sensitive intelligence data relating to crimes, such as victims’ personal information.
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Police and Crime General
A police force previously placed in special measures has made "notable improvements" but "enduring issues" remain, a report has found.
The report on Wiltshire Police was published by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
Inspector Kathryn Stone OBE said that despite the improvements there were still issues in areas such as culture, data use and investigation standards.
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Justice
A police force should better protect the rights of children and improve safety in custody, an inspection report has concluded.
The findings about North Yorkshire Police (NYP), published by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), also raised concerns about answering non-emergency calls and supporting victims' needs.
However, the force had improved its leadership and support for the workforce, according to the report, which said NYP was "good" in six areas.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) is introducing mandatory recording of police officer suicides following a coroner’s prevention of future deaths report into the death of Sussex Police sergeant Ben Websdale.
The move, first reported by the Daily Mirror, follows concerns raised after Sgt Websdale took his own life while under investigation for alleged misconduct. The Mirror reported that his death led to a coroner recommending major changes to how forces record and respond to suicides among officers.
The coroner, Penelope Schofield, issued a prevention of future deaths report in February calling for all forces to record officer suicides and improve suicide trauma education and training for staff.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The Metropolitan Police is solving 50% more shoplifting cases in areas trialling new technology designed to rapidly identify suspects.
Technology allowing retailers to submit reports and CCTV footage instantly has been piloted in areas such as Lewisham and central London since January.
According to the Met, providing officers with immediate access to high?quality evidence at the point of reporting makes identifying repeat offenders operating across boroughs easier.
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Justice
Jonathan Hussey, managing director of Red Snapper Managed Services, responds to recent criticism of Out of Court Resolutions operated by police forces.
The Magistrates’ Association’s new position statement on Out-of-Court Resolutions lands with a now-familiar framing: a “shadow justice system” operating without oversight, eroding open justice, expanding into territory where the bench should sit.
It’s a powerful phrase. It’s also the wrong starting point.
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Police and Crime General
Few people understand better than Tim Jacques how a new breed of extremists, such as the Southport killer, Axel Rudakubana, “harvest” terrorist ideologies in their online search for extreme forms of violence to unleash on their communities.
Jacques, a father of three, spent 37 years in policing specialising in firearms, intelligence and counter-terrorism, where he spearheaded the response to the Manchester Arena bombing – including overseeing the extradition of the attacker’s brother, Hashem Abedi, to the UK to face justice.
Now, in a week when the spotlight was turned back on the devastating Southport murders, Jacques, 61, has been charged with the task of helping to revamp the Government’s Prevent counter-terror programme after it was shown to have failed to stop the extreme outburst of violence by Rudakubana.
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Prisons
The government has said it will roll out biometric checks in prisons after new figures revealed 179 people were freed in error in the year to March.
It came as the findings of an independent review criticised recent mistaken releases as "simply one symptom of a broken system".
Dame Lynne Owens's review was commissioned after Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly freed from an Essex prison in October 2025, where he had been jailed after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while living in an asylum hotel.
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Justice
Child victims of online sexual abuse are being inadequately protected from further harm because police forces are struggling to cope with an increase in this crime, his majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary has warned.
Michelle Skeer said: “Without investment and coordination, the situation will worsen and children could be put at further risk.”
She said the Home Office and police leaders “must act urgently” to tackle a crime that could have “a lasting and devastating impact on children”.
[ more...]
Technology
Costly court transcript fees have meant that victims have had to fork out hundreds – and in some cases thousands of pounds – to access exactly what was said in court to help provide answers and closure.
The findings have the potential to significantly reduce these fees and mark another step towards greater transparency – breaking down barriers and making criminal court transcripts far easier to obtain for those who need them most.
The measures are part of this government’s work to improve the justice system we inherited through investment, reform and modernisation to deliver swifter and fairer justice for victims.
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Police Demand
The number of shoplifting offences has risen by 133 per cent in the past five years, official figures show.
The number of thefts reported to police rose from 228,128 in 2020-21 to 530,457 in 2024-25, according to House of Commons Library data analysed by the Liberal Democrats.
However, only 19.83 per cent of offences in 2024-25 resulted in a charge, with wide variations between the 43 police forces in England and Wales.
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Police and Crime General
Teenager Mohammed Umar Khan racked up 130 incidents involving violence, weapons and aggression in a few short years at his secondary school in Sheffield.
He was known to carry a knife, had been reported by other pupils as having brought a BB gun on a school trip, and on one occasion, off the school site, an axe was found in his bag.
Faced with a catalogue of appalling behaviour, Silverdale School would have been well within its rights – indeed, some might argue it was duty-bound – to permanently exclude the boy.
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Police and Crime General
The college says stop and search plays a “crucial role” in preventing serious harm, protecting communities and taking dangerous weapons off the streets.
“When used appropriately, proportionately and with professionalism, it is an effective and legitimate tool which helps officers keep the public safe,” it added.
“But when stop and search is used inappropriately, not clearly justified, or delivered without professionalism, it can undermine trust between the police and the communities they serve.”
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Justice
This Government is pushing ahead with its plan to eliminate at least half of all jury trials in Britain – all those that may result in up to three years’ imprisonment and all estimated to be “long” (more than a week?) or “complex” e.g. fraud or official secrecy prosecutions. The Courts and Tribunals Bill implementing these measures is in its House of Commons committee stage this week.
Trial by jury is a unique English institution which has served for centuries to provide a form of criminal justice that is trusted and respected by the public. When asked what should be the very first right to be protected by a British Bill of Rights, no less than 89 per cent said the right to be tried by a jury. So, what has possessed the Government to take the axe to an institution that is on any view a part of our heritage?
[ more...]
Police Demand
More than 500 people were arrested for allegedly showing support for a proscribed organisation during a protest against the ban on Palestine Action in London.
The Metropolitan Police said 523 people, aged between 18 and 87, were arrested after hundreds gathered in Trafalgar Square on Saturday, with many carrying signs in support of Palestine Action.
The majority of those arrested at the protest, named Everyone Day, have been released on bail, it is understood.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
While staff in blue gilets gingerly restock shelves, everyone in the supermarket turns to stare at the man in tracksuit bottoms and a cap who is swearing and lashing out. Trying to protect himself against the onslaught is the shop’s security guard, kitted out in a police-style uniform with a truncheon at his hip. He asked to see inside the man’s bag. The man vocally refused. Now the police are on their way.
This is central Barcelona, in Spain, where, like in the UK, shoplifting is on the rise, but crucially, security guards have more power to do something about it.
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Prisons
Jailed criminals who are flooding prisons with drugs should be isolated like radical extremists and “assertively managed”, the England and Wales prisons watchdog has said.
Charlie Taylor, HM inspector of prisons, said major dealers were living “consequence-free” in jail when they should be separated from the majority of inmates, subjected to regular searches for phones, and punished and rewarded according to their behaviour.
[ more...]
Police Demand
If you’re on social media and have even a passing interest in home improvement, there’s a good chance you will have seen Kevin Tingley’s work. The 39-year-old decorator is known as Paint Warrior – and has millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram. He’s in demand, highly skilled, generous in sharing tips from his many years of experience and even has his own range of products on sale in the UK and the US.
But even with his social media army and branded brushes, he’s still not immune to the biggest threat faced by British tradespeople: tool theft. “It was Boxing Day morning,” Tingley says. “I was still in bed, my wife was on her way to the gym. She came running back in and told me that all the doors of my van were open.”
[ more...]
Police Demand
Sergeant David Lund recently tracked a quad bike that had been stolen from a farm in Whitby, North Yorkshire, to a rocky outcrop just outside Middlesbrough, roughly 25 miles away. A police car couldn’t reach the outcrop, and Cleveland Police, which covers the area, said it didn’t have an off-road vehicle to send. So, naturally, Lund pursued the thieves on foot, running up an 800ft peak in the dead of night.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Children are reporting online sextortion attempts in record numbers in the UK, as campaigners urge tech companies to do more to stamp out the crime.
The Report Remove service, which allows children to flag intimate images or videos of themselves that have appeared, or could appear, online, said it received 394 reports from under-18s last year of blackmail attempts after sending sexual images to predators. The figure is 34% higher than in 2024.
[ more...]
Prisons
Lasers could be deployed at prisons to shoot down drones delivering drugs to criminals.
Companies that build and sell anti-drone systems have been invited by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to bid for a contract to stop contraband being flown to inmates. There has been a surge in drugs being delivered to criminals’ prison windows by the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
[ more...]
Prisons
A Northumberia officer who hit and killed a 74-year-old motorbike passenger after going through a red light while responding to a 999 call has been jailed despite the victim’s family saying they ““did not want him to go to prison for doing his job”.
[ more...]
Technology
Police are to step up the use of live facial recognition cameras, knife arches and patrols in knife-crime hotspots in a drive to cut offences by a third in two years.
A £26 million knife-crime concentrations fund will support a surge in police activity and technology to tackle criminals who use knives.
The Home Office says the vast majority of knife crime is repeated in the same places. Mapping software being provided to police forces will allow them to pinpoint hotspots to within 100 metres. The technology will enable the police to identify where to send patrols, install new CCTV and knife arches and set up live facial recognition cameras.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Schools across England are to receive dedicated support to prevent knife crime incidents in a hyper-targeted Home Office programme that uses mapping technology to identify areas of risk down to the level of specific groups of streets.
Under the £1.2m scheme – part of a series of initiatives launched under a government pledge to halve knife crime within a decade – a maximum of 250 schools will receive help.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Fraud has never been a police priority because, as one detective explained, it doesn't "bang, bleed or shout" like other crimes. It isn't sexy, is how some cops put it.
Fraud is Britain's most common crime, but it's been poorly investigated for decades - with only a fraction of cases leading to prosecutions.
The government and chief constables are now committed to improving fraud investigation and the service to victims of a crime that continues to rise, with an estimated 4.2 million frauds in the year to September 2025.
[ more...]
Justice
Ministers are accused of sitting on official data showing that backlogs in the criminal courts are falling because it undermines radical moves to curtail jury trials.
Analysis of government figures from specialist barristers found that lifting the cap on the number of judicial sitting days in the crown courts had reduced the backlog in key regions of England and Wales, including London.
David Lammy, the justice secretary, released funding in October for an additional 1,250 sitting days in the crown courts, claiming that he was “speeding up justice for victims”.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Marks & Spencer's retail director has called for a crackdown on retail crime, after a string of incidents involving shoplifting and violence at its stores.
Thinus Keeve said police should be given the resources to tackle the issue, which he says is "getting worse, not better", with retail staff facing "abuse and violence in their workplace every day".
M&S external affairs director Adam Hawksbee told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that stores have been targeted by organised criminal gangs, leaving staff "worried about coming into work".
[ more...]
Technology
Six teenage girls have been arrested after two separate incidents of anti-social behaviour "fuelled by online trends" in south-west London, the Met Police said.
About 100 officers were called to Clapham High Street on Tuesday where young people were reported to be attempting to access shops and a restaurant. They also lit fires and set off fireworks on Clapham Common.
Three girls were arrested, after five people were assaulted, including four police officers. One suffered an injury while making an arrest. On Saturday, the force attended a similar disturbance, and arrested three others.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Scrapping non-crime hate incidents has enabled officers to solve more real crimes, says Britain’s most senior police chief.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the force had doubled the number of real hate crimes that it had solved since he announced in December last year that his force would no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs).
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police officers who failed to investigate Asian grooming gangs will be held to account by the public inquiry into the scandal, its head has pledged.
Baroness Longfield, the chairman of the inquiry, said some officers had been “reluctant to act... because of concerns about how it may look”.
However, she said the inquiry would not “shy away” from directly investigating the specific ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds of the perpetrators behind the grooming gangs.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The UK government is to change when police forces in England and Wales record non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), in a bid to end the policing of "everyday arguments".
New Home Office guidance will say that forces should only log incidents that are potentially "relevant to policing".
It comes after a review by police chiefs found the system, developed in the mid-2000s, had increasingly seen officers drawn into policing debates on social media.
[ more...]
Technology
A new 999 emergency service communication network will not be fully operational until the 2030s – more than a decade late and at least £3bn over budget, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Emergency Services Network (ESN) was supposed to have replaced the existing “walkie-talkie” style Airwave system for police, fire and ambulance services in England, Scotland and Wales by 2020.
[ more...]
Technology
When Alvi Choudhury opened his door to two police officers in January, he assumed they wanted footage from his video doorbell. “Hello officers, I’m not in trouble, am I?” he joked. “Alvi, right?” one of them responded. “You’re under arrest.”
Choudhury, a 26-year-old British Asian software engineer from Southampton, was a suspect in a burglary committed in Milton Keynes—a town more than 100 miles away. Initially, he thought the matter would be cleared up quickly; he’d been working at the time of the incident and he’d never even been to Milton Keynes. But the arresting officers from Hampshire Constabulary didn’t want to know. Choudhury was led away in handcuffs. He spent 10 hours locked in a cell while he waited for officers from Thames Valley Police to come and question him.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The OECD has slashed its UK growth forecast and flagged the biggest inflation revision among major economies, as the US and Israel’s war on Iran sends energy prices up.
[ more...]
Justice
Across a third of neighbourhoods in England and Wales, not a single break-in was solved, an investigation by The Sun has found.
Meanwhile, fewer than one in 100 mobile phone thefts led to a suspect being charged.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The best way to stop people becoming criminals is to reduce poverty, target prevention strategies at young people and increase opportunity, his majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary has said.
Sir Andy Cooke, who is preparing to leave his post and retire after 40 years in policing, told the Guardian that his decades of experience had taught him that crime was a “symptom of deeper societal failures”.
Cooke, who began his career walking the beat in Liverpool, said a lot of crime could be reduced by prevention targeting young people and those coming out of jail.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The public was put at risk because ministers and police ignored warnings about cutting neighbourhood policing, the watchdog has said.
Sir Andy Cooke, who steps down as chief inspector of policing this week, said the public had been exposed to avoidable risks and “serious failures” because of the failure to act on his team’s recommendations.
[ more...]
Prisons
Prison visitor boards used since the Victorian era will be scrapped in a shake-up of watchdogs overseeing jails.
The army of local volunteers, now known as independent monitoring boards (IMBs), are to be merged into a single inspectorate with their professional counterparts as part of a value-for-money review by the Cabinet Office of all arm’s-length bodies.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK inflation rate remained at 3 per cent in the year to February, the Office for National Statistics says. The statistics body says clothing was the largest driver of inflation, but this was offset by lower petrol prices before the US-Israel war with Iran.
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Police Finances
The NFU has welcomed an £800,000 funding boost for the National Wildlife Crime Unit and the National Rural Crime Unit, building on the same investment first announced for both units last year.
Minister for Policing, Sarah Jones, is making the announcement at the National Rural Crime Network Conference in York today.
She is expected to say: “Rural crime devastates local communities yet often goes unseen. That’s why we’re boosting neighbourhood policing, continuing to invest in specialist units and giving officers better tools to pursue offenders and give rural communities the protection they deserve.
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Police Finances
A police force has been told it will not be reimbursed more than £900,000 spent policing US president Donald Trump's state visit to Windsor.
Thames Valley's police and crime commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber said the Home Office had confirmed it would not reimburse the cost of officer time.
Barber said he was "disappointed" at the government's stance. The dispute comes as the government agreed to repay costs incurred by the local council for the same visit.
The Home Office said the force would receive "reimbursement for their additional costs".
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Justice
Most offenders in England and Wales who would have faced up to a year in jail are likely to receive no more than a suspended sentence from Monday, under one of the most significant changes to jail terms in decades.
Under the reform, courts must stop handing out such short prison terms other than in a number of specific or exceptional circumstances.
MPs passed the measure as part of the government's plan to end the population crisis in prisons - with rehabilitation experts saying there's no evidence short jail terms work.
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Police Mergers
The Home Office has published the terms of reference for the independent review of police structures which is part of the policing reform white paper. Here are five key things to know.
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Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has voted to keep its base rate steady at 3.75% as the ongoing conflict between the US, Israel and Iran drives up energy prices.
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Police Mergers
The police and crime commissioner (PCC) for West Mercia, John Campion, is asking local residents to give their views on proposals to merge forces across England and Wales.
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Police and Crime General
More than half the public is confident the police investigate major crimes, dropping to 14% on lesser crimes, the survey reveals.
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Prisons
Prisoners in one of Britain’s worst jails are routinely making and carrying weapons, a watchdog has revealed.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said the level of violence, including attacks on staff, at HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey, in Kent, was among the highest of any jail in England and Wales.
“Much of the violence had been driven by the large amounts of drugs being brought into the prison by drones. Drug debts and gang rivalry were often the cause of assaults, and many prisoners were routinely making and carrying weapons,” said Mr Taylor.
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Police and Crime General
A former police officer who led the investigation into the Nottingham triple killer has apologised for failing to test him for drugs.
Leigh Sanders told the inquiry into the killings that officers should have taken a hair sample from Valdo Calocane for drug testing after his arrest.
The retired senior Nottinghamshire Police officer said prosecutors might have been able to prevent his murder charge being downgraded to manslaughter, on the grounds of diminished responsibility, if they had had proof that the paranoid schizophrenic was using drugs.
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Technology
Known as Post Call Analysis (PCA), the system was developed in partnership with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Digital Public Contact (DPC) programme. It addresses a long-standing challenge faced by police control rooms with high volumes of contact where critical details of calls are not consistently captured by force systems.
Although all calls are audio recorded, the information retained often depends on operator notes rather than the full content of the conversation. This limits the ability to analyse demand, spot emerging trends, and connect intelligence across incidents – while also adding pressure to already busy control room staff.
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Police Finances
A police officer has described being punched, kicked and having her ankle broken during her first three years in the job, as figures show more than 100 officers a day are assaulted in England and Wales.
PC Lauren Butcher, who needed weeks of specialist rehabilitation and counselling after one injury, says she welcomes plans to roll out a new type of Taser stun gun for protection.
The Home Office state more than 40,000 assaults of police officers are assaulted each year.
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Justice
A Labour peer warned that there is “unfinished business” when it comes to tackling the trafficking of women and girls, as a raft of criminal justice reforms cleared a parliamentary hurdle.
The Courts and Victims Bill had its third reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday and will now go back to the Commons, where MPs will either accept or reject peers’ changes in a process known as ping-pong.
The Bill has been amended by the Lords after a string of Government defeats on issues like free access to court transcripts, victims of murder abroad and the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme.
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Police and Crime General
3D-printed ‘ghost guns’ have become increasingly in demand by criminal groups, partly because of the belief that such weapons are untraceable; but new research by Dr Georgina Sauzier and PhD candidate Michale Vic Adamos of Western Australia’s Curtin University suggests that chemical analysis of the filaments used to print the guns could help forensic investigators and police to link a seized gun and seized filament, or guns seized from different cases.
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Police Reform
What happens to policing when its local watchdog is abolished?
In this third and final conversation, Policing TV’s Bernard Rix speaks with Fran Hughes, Chief Executive of the Devon & Cornwall Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, about the future of police governance in England and Wales.
Fran reflects on the sudden announcement that PCCs will be abolished in 2028, the uncertainty facing her team, and the parallel reforms coming in the police reform white paper and the Blunkett–Herbert leadership review. She also shares why strong, informed governance still matters – and why local communities must keep a voice over how almost half of the policing budget is spent.
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Technology
West Yorkshire Police and NPCC Digital Public Contact launch new capability.
West Yorkshire Police, working in partnership with the NPCC Digital Public Contact (DPC) programme, has become the first force in England and Wales to go live with a new artificial intelligence capability designed to extract insight from historic control room calls.
The capability, known as Post Call Analysis (PCA), is being deployed at West Yorkshire Police following a period of pilot activity. It has been developed jointly by the team at West Yorkshire Police and DPC working with the NPCC Public Contact portfolio team, with DPC providing the national enabling framework to support local delivery.
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Technology
Ahead of next month’s launch of the Police.AI initiative, which will develop and drive technological advances for forces in England and Wales, NCA Director of Threat Leadership Alex Murray, the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for AI, spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the aims and ambitions for the new centre, the potential for leveraging technology in policing, and the role of police leadership – with current chiefs likely to be the last cohort to run a ‘human only’ workforce.
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Police Reform
The home secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced that Lord Hogan-Howe, the former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, will lead her radical review of policing in England and Wales.
Hogan-Howe, 68, was a policeman for 38 years and became chief constable of Merseyside and an inspector of constabulary before leading Scotland Yard.
He has been asked to deliver “evidence-based recommendations” by the summer. That’s not a lot of time, but Shabana Mahmood has already made her mind up. Instead of 43 forces, she wants a smaller number of larger forces plus an overarching National Police Service (being likened to a British FBI).
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Police Reform
People have been asked for their views on proposals to merge police forces across England and Wales.
John Campion, West Mercia's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), said he is seeking views on plans which could see "the biggest shake up to policing in 60 years".
The Conservative PCC's three-month consultation for residents in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Worcestershire, includes an online survey and events where people can share their opinions.
"Given that this is affecting a service our hardworking tax-paying public pay for, it is right that they are consulted," Campion said.
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Justice
Pat had been in trouble with the police before, when she was 16 and had been spat out of the care system with no qualifications, no housing and no support. Nearly 50 years later, she heard a knock on the door again.
There had been a fire in the estate where she lived, and another resident said she had seen Pat start it. “I was in the police station for nearly two days before I got to the magistrates court,” she said, worrying one finger over the top of her hand. “The magistrate said he was sending it to the crown court, and sending me to prison, basically.”
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Police Demand
Public order laws are no longer tenable because of the pressure from human rights legislation, Britain’s most senior police officer has said.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, said the Human Rights Act 1998 had introduced huge “complexity” into how police officers handled demonstrations.
Sir Mark said public order laws and human rights legislation clashed, injecting too much “grey” into decision-making, and an overhaul of public order laws was required to bring back “clarity” for officers.
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Police Reform
The three-month consultation for residents of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Worcestershire, includes an online survey and events where people can share their opinions.
It follows the announcement of an independent review could see the current system of 43 forces reduced to 12 larger organisations which Mr Campion says could see “”the biggest shake up to policing in 60 years”.
He is especially concerned by the fact that the review is being led by someone “who has been calling for mergers since 2006” and that this could “lead to it happening despite there being uncertainty that the public support them”.
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Police and Crime General
Extremists are circulating designs for a 3D-printed device that can turn ordinary pistols into sub-machineguns, raising fears the technology could soon be used in a deadly attack.
The device, known as a “Glock switch”, can be produced on a consumer 3D printer and fitted to a handgun in seconds, allowing it to fire automatically.
Security experts warned that the spread of the technology means it is only a matter of time before it is used in an attack.
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Police and Crime General
Environment Agency officials could gain police-style powers to help them crack down on fly-tipping and the illegal dumping of waste in England, the government has said.
Ministers say they are looking at allowing environment officers to search premises without a warrant, seize assets and arrest those suspected of criminality.
The EA currently brings prosecutions and in the last year there have been 10 immediate custodial sentences and the shut down of over 1,000 illegal waste sites. But the government believes more could be done with new powers.
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Justice
Fujitsu has yet to contribute a single penny to the £2 billion cost of compensation for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal despite acknowledging a moral obligation to do so more than two years ago, MPs will say today.
A report by the House of Commons business and trade committee said progress had been made in compensating victims, with more than 11,300 claimants having received payments and £1.44 billion distributed so far. However, it noted that “serious structural failings persist” in the redress system and condemned Fujitsu for failing even to offer an interim payment while the taxpayer shoulders the bill.
The MPs highlighted that the Japanese technology company continues to benefit from substantial public sector work.
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Police Demand
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has warned mobile phone manufacturers and technology companies to take urgent action to tackle phone theft or risk government intervention.
Speaking at the Metropolitan Police’s first International Mobile Phone Crime Conference (IMPCC), Sir Mark Rowley said the theft of mobile phones has developed into a global organised crime business and cannot be solved by policing alone while stolen devices retain significant resale value overseas.
He said the industry must now move from discussions to implementing solutions that make stolen phones unusable anywhere in the world.
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Police and Crime General
A police force's management of sex offenders no longer poses a potential risk to the public, a watchdog has said.
In 2024, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) moved Lincolnshire Police into an enhanced level of monitoring citing "significant service failures".
One area flagged by the inspectors was the management of registered sex offenders, with officers facing a backlog.
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Justice
Hate crimes against Muslims are almost twice as likely to result in prosecution than those against Jews, figures have revealed for the first time.
The rate of the offences targeting Muslims that resulted in a charge or summons was 6.7 per cent in the year to March 2025, equivalent to one in 15 offences recorded by the police.
However, just 3.8 per cent of anti-Jewish hate crimes led to a charge or summons in the same 12-month period, which was one in 26.
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Police Reform
The government’s proposals include conflicting and confusing comments about local accountability and scrutiny, writes the chief executive of Wyre Forest DC.
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Police Finances
Suffolk Police is forecasting a budget underspend of £4.2m due to lower costs and higher income than expected.
The force has an annual budget of £182m, of which about 85% is spent on staff pay.
Lower-than-expected energy, vehicle repair and technology costs, and reduced police officer hours made up the majority of the underspend.
Tim Passmore, the Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner, said the force had not aimed for a surplus but it had provided financial resilience.
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Police and Crime General
Undercover police officers spied on the justice campaign run by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent man shot dead by police on the tube in 2005, the spycops public inquiry has heard.
The surveillance took place while the grieving family was seeking to hold the Metropolitan police to account and uncover the truth of why officers had mistaken him for a suicide bomber when they shot him seven times in the head.
The catastrophic mistake caused a huge crisis for Scotland Yard and its reputation.
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Justice
The Welsh Parliament voted against a proposed UK law that would create a new offence of assaulting a retail worker.
The Crime and Policing Bill currently passing through UK Parliament also includes measures to criminalise climbing war memorials, as well as allowing police to enter premises to find electronically-tracked stolen goods like smartphones and laptops.
Labour was the only party to support the bill applying to Wales in Tuesday's Senedd vote, with members of Plaid Cymru, the Conservatives, Reform UK and Liberal Democrats all voting against it for different reasons.
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Technology
As forces work towards Policing Vision 2030, questions remain about the pace of meaningful change. This article explores how predictive policing is enabling forces to move from reactive response to earlier intervention, using existing data and governed AI to build prevention and public trust.
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Police Demand
Police have launched a fresh crackdown on dodgy Amazon Fire TV sticks, with eight new areas across the UK being targeted.
Illegal Amazon Fire Sticks and 'dodgy boxes' are streaming devices that have third-party software installed in them, allowing users to watch premium content from providers such as TNT Sports, Sky Sports and Disney+ for free.
The use of these devices is deemed a 'serious crime', and police forces across the UK and Ireland, alongside the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), have been targeting individuals who continue to watch unauthorised content. Sky, who pays billions to the Premier League to show matches, also have their own in-house piracy team.
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Technology
There are just 50 people on Ofcom's team enforcing the Online Safety Act, tasked with achieving the Government’s ambition to make the UK the "safest place in the world to be online".
Signs on the walls urge anyone who's not approved to work with distressing content to stay away, and partitioning screens ensure the team's privacy.
This is where Ofcom's Online Safety Act investigations unit operates, building cases against tech firms suspected of allowing harmful material on their platforms, without adequate safety measures like age checks in place.
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Police and Crime General
New and expanded fraud strategy sets out how the government will dismantle overseas scam compounds and protect the public from the UK’s most pervasive crime.
Fraudsters will be stopped in their tracks by a new online crime squad, set up to disrupt the gangs behind Britain’s most pervasive crime.
Launching operations in April, the new Online Crime Centre will bring together specialists from the government, police, intelligence agencies, banks, mobile networks and major tech firms to drive co-ordinated action against fraud.
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Police Demand
Careless or inconsiderate driving will be tackled by a roads policing unit, after it was one of the leading causes of fatal collisions.
Thames Valley Police (TVP) and Hampshire and Isle of Wight's shared roads policing unit had added careless driving to its 'Fatal Five'.
The group encompasses the five main causes of serious incidents on roads, and also includes speeding, impairment, distraction and not wearing a seatbelt.
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Police Reform
Commissioner Mark Payne, QPM, MBA – former West Midlands Assistant Chief Constable and now head of the Royal Montserrat Police Service – shares candid views on the UK’s Police Leadership Commission and the Police Reform White Paper. Drawing on 30 years’ experience from homicide and organised crime to counter-terrorism, he unpacks what good leadership really demands at the top of policing.
He reflects on why change so often goes wrong, the lack of serious leadership training, and why merging national capabilities like the NCA and counter-terrorism policing could threaten operational independence if mishandled. A thoughtful, insider’s look at where reform could succeed – and where it could quietly do real damage.
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Police Demand
ChatGPT is driving a rise in reports of organised ritual abuse, UK experts have said, as survivors of “satanic” sexual violence use the AI tool for therapy.
Police say organised ritual abuse and “witchcraft, spirit possession and spiritual abuse” (WSPRA) against children is under-reported in the UK. There is no modern-day charge that covers it specifically, but such offending is typified by sexual abuse, violence and neglect involving ritualistic elements – sometimes inspired by satanism, fascism or esoteric religious beliefs – to control victims.
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Justice
Senior retired judges have joined leading barristers in opposing the removal of the right to trial by jury in thousands of cases as the government faces a backbench rebellion.
David Lammy, the justice secretary, has asked to meet the architect of a Commons revolt in a last-ditch attempt to quell dissent among Labour MPs.
In a letter to The Times, senior judicial figures and lawyers warned that the plans were unworkable and suggested that politicians lacked trust in members of the public.
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Police Demand
Sexual assault allegations against Metropolitan Police officers and staff have nearly tripled in the five years since the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, The Telegraph can disclose.
Data show there were 68 allegations of sexual assault made against officers and staff at Britain’s biggest force in 2025, the highest number on record.
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Police and Crime General
The head of the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has been arrested on suspicion of corruption.
A man understood to be Mukund Krishna, the chief executive of the federation, was held alongside two other suspects with connections to the organisation by City of London Police on Wednesday.
The force said its domestic corruption unit has been investigating allegations of fraud by abuse of position in relation to the federation over the last year.
Officers carried out search warrants in Wales, Somerset, London and Surrey.
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Justice
Economic abuse from a partner contributes to one death from homicide or suicide every 19 days, a charity has found.
Surviving Economic Abuse (Sea) said economic abuse from an intimate partner was a factor in more than half of deaths related to domestic abuse but was often misunderstood or overlooked.
The charity analysed 454 domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) – carried out when a person dies by homicide or suicide as a result of domestic abuse – between 2012 and 2024.
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Police and Crime General
The Leicester City Council public health team has worked in partnership with Leicestershire Police and Turning Point, a locally commissioned drug and alcohol treatment service, to develop a lifesaving initiative enabling front line police officers to carry and administer the lifesaving opiate antidote, naloxone.
In its first 12 months this has already seen 14 lives potentially saved.
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Police Mergers
Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe has been appointed to lead the Independent Review of Police Force Structures that will lead to a smaller number of larger forces across England and Wales.
As set out in the landmark, Police Reform White Paper, the independent review will make evidence-based recommendations on how to restructure policing across England and Wales into fewer, larger forces.
The Government said the review will identify the optimum number of forces and the geographic areas they will cover.
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Police Mergers
Rachel Reeves has said stability in public finances, investment in infrastructure and reform to the economy are changing the UK for the better, and that any temptation to change course must be resisted.
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Police Reform
The government has appointed former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to chair an independent review into police force structures in England and Wales, as part of sweeping reforms set out in its Police Reform White Paper.
The review will examine how policing could be reorganised into a smaller number of larger, regional forces, making evidence-based recommendations on the optimal number of forces and the geographic areas they would cover. It will also consider how any new structures should be governed and held accountable to ensure they remain effective in delivering local policing and responding to community priorities.
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Police Reform
Lord Hogan-Howe has been announced as Chair of the independent review of police force structures in England and Wales that was announced in the police reform White Paper. In response, APCC Chair Emily Spurrell said:
“Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) back much of what is proposed under the government’s plans to modernise policing, but we have seen no evidence to suggest the public want fewer forces, or that reorganisation would deliver improved services. The public want a responsive police force that understands and acts on local priorities. Regional forces will remove the connection to those they serve and who increasingly fund policing through local taxation.
“This review would be better conducted in slower time and separately to the delivery of an already ambitious police reform agenda. As the voice of the public in policing, PCCs and Deputy Mayors will use the review and the passage of the reform Bill through Parliament to make the case for local communities.
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Police and Crime General
Restoring control of the borders is not a betrayal of Labour values, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will say as she sets out more reforms to the immigration system.
In a speech to the centre-left think tank IPPR on Thursday, the cabinet minister will urge her party not to shift leftwards after its resounding defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
It comes as Sky News has learned that almost £400m has been saved in asylum accommodation and support costs after a crackdown on tourists abusing the UK's immigration system.
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Economy & Public Finance
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves will present her Spring Statement to the Commons today, insisting she has “the right economic plan for our country”. She will emphasise the importance of stability in public finances amidst global uncertainties.
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Justice
UK parliament to debate whether all suicides linked to domestic abuse to be investigated as homicide.
Lib Dems table amendment to crime and policing bill, saying system ‘simply not doing enough to protect women’
Hannah Al-Othman North of England correspondent
Tue 3 Mar 2026 21.05 GMT
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Parliament is to debate whether all suicides in cases involving victims of domestic abuse should be investigated as homicide.
The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the crime and policing bill saying that if “there is reasonable suspicion that a death by suicide has been preceded by a history of domestic abuse committed against the person by another person, the relevant police force must investigate that suicide as if it were a potential homicide”.
Given the size of Labour’s majority, any amendment is unlikely to succeed unless it has the support of the government or MPs are allowed a free vote.
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Police and Crime General
A police force has been told it requires improvement in two out of three areas in which it was assessed.
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services gave the ratings to Thames Valley Police (TVP) for how it tackles corruption and upholds professional standards. The force's vetting was judged to be adequate.
Areas of concern identified by inspectors included the force not undertaking random drug testing for staff and the way it handled and referred complaints.
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Police and Crime General
The strikes against Iran by Israel and the US on Saturday have resulted in counterattacks by Tehran on Israel and cities in the Middle East. It has sparked concern that the Iranian regime may use terror to retaliate.
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Police and Crime General
When Jodie*, a police officer, was called into a meeting in 2022 and informed that everyone in her team would undergo new background checks, her heart “actually jumped for joy”.
The move, known as revetting, was one of a number of ad hoc responses by police forces across the UK to the kidnap and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer, in March 2021. The reforms were supposed to show that the force took police-perpetrated abuse seriously.
“I thought they were telling me they were finally getting my ex after all this time,” Jodie says. She had first submitted an abuse complaint against her ex-boyfriend, who is also a police officer, in 2020. For two years, she says, paperwork had been lost, emails had gone unanswered, and police bosses had accused her of imagining the abuse which had left her with bruises and scratches. But her excitement over the development quickly faded.
“It started to dawn on me: they were actually saying I was being removed from frontline duties because the vetting had flagged up an old? false complaint he’d made saying I was the real abuser,” she says.
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Police and Crime General
The UK's terror threat level is "absolutely" under review following US and Israel strikes on Iran, the defence secretary told Sky News.
Since the strikes on Saturday, Iran has carried out retaliatory attacks on Israel, US military installations around the Gulf, and Gulf Arab states, including the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, and the global business and tourist hub of Dubai.
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Police Reform
After 16 years working alongside and advising policing, witnessing numerous transformations, including the inception of police and crime commissioners in 2011, I approached the government’s white paper on police reforms with some scepticism. I was braced for that sinking feeling related to proposals that offer yet more change for change’s sake.
But to my surprise, I found myself slowly won over by the common sense, recognition of real issues facing modern policing, alongside well considered aims including the deployment of technology and artificial intelligence.
However, while the white paper is a welcome step forward, the critical question of timing cannot be overlooked.
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Police and Crime General
Parents have voiced fears after a poster circulated online urging pupils from schools in Northamptonshire to take part in organised violence.
The poster, which promoted a 'Northampton War', listed multiple schools in the area and encouraged teenagers to gather and "be violent".
Northamptonshire Police said they were aware of the post and warned that "anyone seen fighting or wielding weapons of any kind will be arrested".
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Justice
Dozens of criminal trials will not take place for another four years, damning new figures reveal, as crime victims face “inhumane” delays for justice under Britain’s broken courts system.
Spiralling backlogs mean a shocking 29 cases – including violent crimes and drug offences – have been scheduled to start as far away as 2030, with victims left waiting at least four years to have their day in court.
In total, more than 2,600 Crown Court trials are not due to be heard until 2028, including 206 rape trials. A further 625 trials will not begin until 2029, including 14 for sexual offences – four of which are for alleged rape.
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Recruitment and Retention
Senior police leaders have urged ministers to back a 3.5% pay increase for officers from September 2026, warning that anything less, or any rise that is not fully funded, could put frontline policing at risk.
The submission, made by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB), sets out what chiefs describe as a “fair and affordable” pay uplift reflecting the rising complexity of modern policing. It also proposes updates to officer allowances alongside the headline pay increase.
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Technology
Scotland Yard is to equip front-line officers with facial recognition technology on their smartphones.
The Metropolitan Police is running a 100-officer trial of the technology, which enables instant checks of suspects’ identities and criminal histories.
It will be the first time the force has deployed handheld facial recognition technology so officers can check suspects against police databases of known criminals and wanted people while on the beat.
The trial will run for six months beginning this spring, and is expected to be used in stop and searches where officers suspect crime may have been committed.
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Technology
Metropolitan police officers are to start scanning citizens’ faces using automated facial recognition technology to check their identities, in a move backed by the mayor of London but described as “alarming” by opponents.
The pilot was revealed on Thursday when Sadiq Khan said 100 officers would use the roaming technology – commonly deployed on smartphones – for six months. The mayor was responding to questioning from an opposition politician amid rising concern about the rollout of AI-powered policing tools. The Met’s website still states it “does not presently use the so-called operator initiated facial recognition”.
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Justice
Justice chiefs almost had to shut down the country's magistrates' courts as prisons became overwhelmed in the wake of the 2024 riots, it has been revealed.
Hundreds of defendants were fast-tracked through the courts after six days of violence and disorder, fuelled by online misinformation that followed the Southport dance class murders of three schoolgirls.
Rioters who had attacked police, started fires, and besieged mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers were held in custody after their first court appearances.
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Police and Crime General
A police force has been told it requires improvement in two out of three areas in which it was assessed.
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services gave the ratings to Thames Valley Police (TVP) for how it tackles corruption and upholds professional standards. The force's vetting was judged to be adequate.
Areas of concern identified by inspectors included the force not undertaking random drug testing for staff and the way it handled and referred complaints.
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Police Finances
Some mega police forces are likely to cover two or three mayoralities, writes the chief executive of Wyre Forest DC.
We might wonder whether the title of the police reform white paper ‘From local to national’ was deliberately ironic: there is a strong theme of centralisation running through it.
It is not only the creation of a National (sic) Police Service to “provide strategic leadership, set standards and provide education, equipment and technology to police forces” (with the exception of the work presently done by the National Crime Agency, the NPS will actually cover only England and Wales).
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Technology
Police arrested a man for a burglary in a city he had never visited after face scanning software deployed across the UK confused him with another person of south Asian heritage.
Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am.
Thames Valley police had used automated facial recognition software which matched him with footage of a suspect of a £3,000 burglary 100 miles away in Milton Keynes, according to documents shared with the Guardian by Liberty Investigates.
[ more...]
Police Reform
After 16 years working alongside and advising policing, witnessing numerous transformations, including the inception of police and crime commissioners in 2011, I approached the government’s white paper on police reforms with some scepticism. I was braced for that sinking feeling related to proposals that offer yet more change for change’s sake.
But to my surprise, I found myself slowly won over by the common sense, recognition of real issues facing modern policing, alongside well considered aims including the deployment of technology and artificial intelligence.
[ more...]
Justice
Faster and fairer justice for victims is at the heart of a new bill introduced in Parliament today (Wednesday 25 February), as the government delivers on its Plan for Change to repair the justice system after years of neglect.
The Courts and Tribunals Bill sets out a pragmatic reform of the criminal courts, and structural changes to the criminal justice system as a result of increasing charges, and a much greater volume of complex cases involving more digital evidence.
Currently 80,000 cases are waiting for justice, nearly 20,000 have been waiting for over a year, including around 2,000 rape cases. The average length of time to complete a Crown Court case is now 255 days, and for adult rape cases is 423 days.
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Police Demand
They call themselves a double act.
On a bitingly cold Monday afternoon, PC Stacey Mohammed and Tony Walgate, a police community support officer, are on patrol in Hull city centre, as they are most days.
The pair, who’ve worked together for more than four years, are part of the reason for Humberside Police’s astonishing recent success in tackling the scourge of shoplifting.
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Police Demand
Chocolate bars are being locked in plastic boxes in some UK shops as retailers and police forces warn thieves are stealing them to order.
Sainsbury's said it had begun using "boxes on products which are regularly targeted", with £2.60 bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk locked up in one London branch.
Chocolate was more recently being "sold on by criminals and is now being targeted more frequently by prolific offenders," according to the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS).
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Technology
At least 21 police forces across England are still using Copilot AI despite West Midlands Police (WMP) blocking Microsoft's tool after inaccurate evidence formed a decision to ban Israeli football fans, Sky News can reveal.
The Birmingham force turned off access to the software after admitting, following initial denials, that a Copilot "hallucination" was responsible for a match that never happened being included in an intelligence document justifying excluding Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Aston Villa in November.
[ more...]
Technology
A police chief has admitted artificial intelligence used to boost crime fighting will contain bias but pledged to combat the risks.
Labour wants a dramatic expansion of police use of AI within England and Wales, with police chiefs also believing it could help keep law enforcement up to date with new criminal threats.
Alex Murray told the Guardian that a new national police AI centre would recognise the risks of bias and minimise them.
[ more...]
Technology
It was fraud on a grand scale. The “Fuck the Police” criminal gang based in Luton and Romania stole £800,000 in more than 3,000 withdrawals from cash machines in dozens of locations throughout 2024.
The police investigation matched the crime in its complexity. When detectives in Bedfordshire seized the suspects’ two dozen smartphones, they were faced with a mountain of potential digital evidence – 1.4 terabytes of information, according to the authorities, connecting co-conspirators across eastern England and the Bacau region of Romania.
[ more...]
Justice
Fewer knife offenders are being sent to jail than at any time in the past decade, official data show.
Less than one in three criminals convicted of knife offences were handed an immediate custodial sentence between July and September last year.
The rate of 28.9 per cent is the lowest since the end of 2014, figures from the Ministry of Justice show.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
A significant increase in capital gains tax, National Insurance contributions, and income tax receipts contributed to a record £30.4 billion surplus for the UK Government in January. This surplus, the highest since records began in 1993, reflects a positive trend in government finances, although economists caution that the overall public finances remain precarious due to slow economic growth
[ more...]
Justice
Mental health professionals decided not to detain the Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane despite a violent incident in 2020, after they considered research that addressed the over-representation of young black men in custody, a public inquiry has been told.
Calocane, who has paranoid schizophrenia, fatally stabbed 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and 65-year-old Ian Coates, and severely injured three others on 13 June 2023.
He was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in January 2024 after admitting three counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and three counts of attempted murder.
[ more...]
Police Reform
A councillor has raised concerns that Staffordshire Police could be merged with a larger force under government plans.
Councillor Joe Porter has submitted a motion to debate the matter at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, in which he urged the authority to call on the government to rethink the plans.
"Staffordshire Police will almost certainly be pulled into either the West Midlands or Greater Manchester, which would result in resources rarely leaving the larger cities and rural areas being left behind," Porter said.
[ more...]
Police Demand
E-bikes, drones and live facial recognition are the latest tools the Metropolitan Police is using to cut the number of mobile phone thefts in London.
A phone is stolen in the capital every seven to eight minutes - and the force warns that children as young as 14 are being targeted over social media and paid up to £100 to steal phones for organised crime gangs.
New figures show that between 2017 and 27 February 2024, out of a total of 587,498 phones stolen in London, excluding the City, just 13,998 were recovered.
But the number of recorded mobile phone thefts in London fell to 71,391 last year, compared to 81,365 in 2024 - a drop of 12% - Met figures show.
[ more...]
Justice
The head of Britain’s largest police force has urged courts to stop granting bail to repeat phone thieves, arguing that such decisions enable them to continue their criminal activities.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley also called on phone manufacturers and telecoms companies to implement measures that would make it more difficult for criminals to reset and re-sell stolen devices.
His comments coincide with figures from the force indicating that recorded phone thefts in London went from 81,365 in 2024 to 71,391 last year.
[ more...]
Justice
Sarah is a survivor of sexual assault. It happened when she was a child, and when she finally plucked up the courage to tell her family, they encouraged her to report it to the police.
She had years of messages from the perpetrator to support her story and police told her she had a good chance of a charge.
But two years later, they called to tell her they had lost the evidence.
"In that moment I felt like a child that I wanted to cry. In that moment I felt like all hope was gone," she told ITV News, using the fake name 'Sarah' for anonymity.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Gangs are recruiting children to go out to steal smartphones before they head to school, using Snapchat to offer rewards of up to £380 for the latest Apple iPhones, police have revealed.
The Metropolitan police said they were deploying new resources including drones and Surron ebikes to chase suspects as they step up their fight against phone snatching.
London is the area in Britain most plagued by phone theft and the Met has been criticised for its response.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The West Midlands police and crime commissioner (PCC) hopes young people could be the key to improving the use of stop and search powers by officers in the region.
According to Simon Foster, the elected official who scrutinises the force, just 34% of the 2,339 stop and searches conducted in January 2026 resulted in some form of further police action.
The PCC said the force would launch youth scrutiny panels, with 14 to 24-year-olds asked to review anonymised body-worn video footage and data and provide feedback to police bosses.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
An attempt by Freemasons to stop the Metropolitan Police from forcing staff to declare whether they are or have been members of the organisation has been thrown out by the High Court despite claims it breaches human rights.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said the policy was a lawful and proportionate way for Scotland Yard to maintain and enhance public trust in policing.
Three bodies representing Freemasons in England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, as well as two serving police officers who are members of the organisation, had sought to overturn the rule.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Child sexual abuse in the UK is soaring, police have said, with 1,000 paedophile suspects being arrested each month and the number of children being rescued from harm rising by 50% in the last five years.
The National Crime Agency said the growth in offending across the UK was driven by technology and linked to the radicalisation of offenders in online forums, encouraging people to view images of child sexual abuse by reassuring them it was normal.
Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, with algorithms pushing paedophilic material to people who have shown a previous interest in it.
[ more...]
Police Reform
A Norfolk council leader has accused the government of “bullying” her local authority into postponing elections in return for extra funding and powers, as she pulled out of long-awaited devolution deal for the county.
Kay Mason Billig, the Conservative leader of Norfolk county council, said she would no longer take part in local government reorganisation (LGR) or devolution plans in the area, saying the council could not participate in that and simultaneously hold elections.
Her announcement came after the government scrapped plans to postpone local elections at 30 councils in England undergoing reorganisation, in the face of a legal challenge from Reform UK.
[ more...]
Technology
There is not much that surprises Darren Hughen these days. A Trading Standards officer for 20 years, he’s dealt with his fair share of rogue traders and cowboy builders.
So when he was called out to help an elderly lady who’d been fleeced of £15,000 for a dodgy garage conversion, he knew the routine. Identify the workman responsible, track him down, make the botched construction safe and take action to recover the money. It seemed like a simple job – but it proved to be anything but...
[ more...]
Police Demand
Hate crimes which target people on the grounds of their sexuality or gender identity, or a disability, are set to become aggravated offences under a proposed new law.
An amendment to the Crimes and Policing Bill will mean a crime is aggravated if a victim is targeted because of those characteristics, and will carry a higher penalty.
The LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop described the amendment as a "landmark moment" for equality.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the last three months of the year, the Office for National Statistics said, which was slightly slower than economists had expected. The ONS said the overall picture for growth towards the end of the year remained “subdued”.
[ more...]
Police Mergers
Labour's plan to merge police forces will damage officers' local knowledge and lead to slower response times, a majority of voters fear.
Research conducted by Ipsos for the Daily Mail exposed serious concerns among the public over Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's proposals to create much larger regional police forces.
[ more...]
Police Mergers
Lincolnshire's police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said plans to merge police forces could be a "threat to our safety".
Marc Jones said the government's proposals to reduce the 43 existing forces in England and Wales to as few as 12 would "not make Lincolnshire better".
The changes could see Lincolnshire merge with neighbouring counties to form an East Midlands force.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Essex Police is looking to cut 110 full-time roles to reduce costs, despite getting an extra £21m over the next year.
In a letter to the chief constable, Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) Roger Hirst said: "The government funding settlement for Essex Police is insufficient to cover the rising costs of policing the county."
Previously, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "Since taking office, this government has increased police funding by nearly £2bn."
[ more...]
Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner (PCC) has defied calls from concerned councillors and approved a 6% increase to the policing precept on council tax bills.
Durham PCC Joy Allen was allowed by the government to add a £3.50 "exceptional flexibility" increase to the proposed £15 police precept increase for Band D properties in 2026-27 - with other bands increasing in proportion.
Cross-party members of the Durham County Council's police and crime panel urged her to reconsider and limit the precept increase to £15, warning the extra rise would be too much for residents.
[ more...]
Police Finances
On a wintry evening at Essex Police's headquarters in Chelmsford about a dozen people aged from their late teens to their seventies arrive to scrutinise officers' actions while on duty.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Planned recruitment of 70 frontline officers cannot go ahead due to lower than expected funding from central government, police chiefs say.
Avon and Somerset Police said it was expecting a grant of £275.3m this year, but funding confirmed by government is more than £4m less than that.
Increased costs and inflation mean that growth in officer numbers would not be achievable, a force spokesperson added.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The decision to scrap a grant dedicated to tackling anti-social behaviour in Warwickshire could have safety implications, councillors fear.
Op Resolve was rolled out in 2024 through a £1m annual government grant to target problem areas with increased patrols by police and partner organisations.
Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Phillip Seccombe said it would be tough to maintain the current level of police presence without government funding for the scheme.
[ more...]
Technology
Deepfake fraud has gone “industrial”, an analysis published by AI experts has said.
Tools to create tailored, even personalised, scams – leveraging, for example, deepfake videos of Swedish journalists or the president of Cyprus – are no longer niche, but inexpensive and easy to deploy at scale, said the analysis from the AI Incident Database.
It catalogued more than a dozen recent examples of “impersonation for profit”, including a deepfake video of Western Australia’s premier, Robert Cook, hawking an investment scheme, and deepfake doctors promoting skin creams.
[ more...]
Police Finances
A new type of taser with double the range of previous devices has been rolled out across the West Midlands Police force.
The Axon Taser 10 (T10) can fire up to 10 single-shot cartridges without reloading and operates at a range of up to 45ft (13.7m).
The new technology, which has replaced an older model, allows officers to be more precise and manage threats from a safer distance, the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has said.
It was introduced after receiving approval from the Home Secretary last October, with West Midlands Police said to be one of the first forces in the country to deploy it.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Many officers may experience hate crime but feel unwilling or unable to report it to their force. Claire Sweeting and Minia Bennie report on some startling FoI findings.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to UK forces found that there were 10,922 reported hate crimes against officers from 27 forces from 2022 to 2025. However, the true figure is likely to be much higher – even close to double – as another 21 forces were not able to provide the information.
In the most recent figures, collected in the financial year 2024-2025, there were 3,648 reported hate crimes with police officer victims – 1,407 of those were against Metropolitan Police officers.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Kent's police and crime commissioner says he wants to increase council tax to fund policing services after a new survey showed more than half of people who responded had experienced anti-social behaviour (ASB).
The study revealed 2,546 residents, out of 5,401 who replied, said they had experienced rowdy and inconsiderate behaviour, littering, vehicle nuisance, street drinking and drug use.
The survey showed 32% had contacted the authorities, and of those who did report their concerns, more than 67% said they were unhappy with how their cases were handled.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The police have been left "undermined" by growing court backlogs, West Mercia's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has claimed.
It comes after it was revealed the West Mercia force area had 1,583 outstanding crown court cases in November 2025, with hearings listed as far ahead as 2029.
John Campion said West Mercia Police was "playing its part by investigating crime", but "without a properly funded and functioning criminal justice system beyond the police, those efforts are being undermined".
[ more...]
Justice
The court system is "on the brink of collapse" as the backlogs for trials reach unprecedented levels, the head of a major review has said.
Sir Brian Leveson, a retired senior judge, warned ministers, the police and others that there could not be a "pick and mix" response to solving the crisis.
Last year, in the first stage of the review, Sir Brian called for the right to a jury trial to be scaled back and many intermediate crimes to be dealt with by a judge alone.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Cheshire Police has been given permission for a higher than usual increase in its share of the council tax, after a request from the area's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
Labour PCC Dan Price is proposing to increase the police element of council tax - the precept by 6.7%, which is £18.50 more per year for a Band D property.
The increase is usually capped at £15 a year for a Band D property.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Plans to increase council tax by £15 a year on average to help fund police services have been approved.
The Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel agreed to a 5.2% rise from April following a proposal by Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez.
It equates to £1.50 a month on a Band D property over 10 months, which is the maximum the government allows PCCs to raise council tax.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
There needs to be a "system change" on drugs policy, Green Party leader Zack Polanksi has said as he reiterated his backing for the legalisation of drugs.
Speaking on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, he called for a "public health approach" that would ensure that someone who had a "problematic relationship with drugs" could get help from a medical professional.
Earlier in the week, Sir Keir Starmer accused Polanski of being "high on drugs, soft on Putin", a comment Polanski said was "disgraceful" and "a cheap joke".
[ more...]
Police Reform
The thrilling storylines of anti-corruption unit AC-12 made the award-winning police drama Line of Duty one of the BBC's most successful recent hits.
Eagle-eyed fans of the series, starring Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure and Martin Compston, will have spotted references to a fictional East Midlands Constabulary.
In reality, the five million people who live in England's East Midlands are policed by five different county forces.
[ more...]
Justice
Almost 50,000 prisoners have been granted early release in England and Wales as part of a government initiative aimed at alleviating overcrowding in jails. The scheme, which allows eligible inmates to be released after serving 40 per cent of their sentence, was introduced in September 2024 following a record prison population. The Ministry of Justice has also reported a significant increase in recalls to custody.
[ more...]
Police Demand
A police force headed by a chief constable with a “back to basics” philosophy is the best at bringing shoplifters to justice, figures show.
Humberside is the best-performing force in England and Wales for catching and prosecuting shoplifters, with a charging rate more than four times that of the bottom-ranked Metropolitan Police.
Some 31.1 per cent of shop thefts in Humberside result in a charge. A further 12 per cent lead to cautions, penalty notices or other sanctions. That compares with a charge rate of just 7.1 per cent at the Met.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Plans to increase council tax by £15 a year on average to help fund police services have been approved.
The Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel agreed to a 5.2% rise from April following a proposal by Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez.
It equates to £1.50 a month on a Band D property over 10 months, which is the maximum the government allows PCCs to raise council tax.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Durham Constabulary was established 187 years ago in 1839, when it became one of England’s first county police forces. Its boundaries ones included Hartlepool, Sunderland, Gateshead, and South Shields.
These boundaries changed in the 1970s, when parts of the county became part of Northumbria and Cleveland. But those changes followed legislation, scrutiny, and public debate in recognition that policing is about place, identity, and trust.
To date there has been no consultation whatsoever on these proposals, apart from lots of column inches given the opinions of London based Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Chair of National Police Chief Council, no published research, no impact assessment, and no sense that the public has been asked what they think of creating large centrally controlled forces.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Sarah Jones said this represents a cash funding increase of 6.7 per cent and a real terms increase of 4.4 per cent.
She said this will provide forces with the “certainty and investment needed to strengthen neighbourhood policing, modernise frontline capability, and ensure policing can meet the demands of today and the future”.
In her ministerial statement, Ms Jones said: “The priority of the 2026/27 settlement is to boost visible policing and ensure forces can shape their workforce to meet modern crime demands. Every community deserves visible, proactive and accessible neighbourhood policing, with officers focused on the issues that matter most locally.”
[ more...]
Justice
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the government is pushing ahead with plans to halve the number of jury trials in England and Wales because he had given his word to crime victims that he would tackle delays to justice.
The government is facing a rebellion by Labour MPs over the proposals, which are aimed at cutting the huge backlog in cases that built up during the Covid pandemic.
Opponents argue that judge-only trials for less serious cases would undermine public trust and have little impact on the backlog.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Almost half of urban motorists have fallen victim to vehicle crime in the past year, a survey reveals.
RAC research carried out in April 2025 with nearly 2,400 motorists found 26 per cent of drivers across Britain have been the target of vehicle crime, with significant differences seen between urban and rural areas.
Almost half (45 per cent) of drivers in towns and city centres said they have experienced vehicle crime in the past 12 months, compared with just 20 per cent in the suburbs or the outskirts of towns and 15 per cent in rural areas.
[ more...]
Prisons
Record numbers of offenders are being recalled to prison in England and Wales with union officials claiming that some are deliberately breaking the terms of their probation in order to deal drugs in prison.
Prison sources said that after the implementation of early release schemes, as many as 5,000 men were recalled in December alone – more than a third of the total number released in the year to June 2025.
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) claimed many were deliberately breaking the terms of their licence so they could profit from a lucrative drugs market in jail.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Leicestershire's top police officer has refused to support budget plans set out by the county's police and crime commissioner (PCC), which he said would leave the force with a £4.7m budget shortfall.
Rupert Matthews, the country's only Reform UK PCC, plans to increase Leicestershire Police's share of the council tax bill by £11 for a Band D property from April - below the £15 allowable under government capping rules.
However, temporary Chief Constable David Sandall said the proposal would leave the force without the resources to keep the public safe.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A new report predicts crime rates and unemployment will rise in England’s 613 most deprived neighbourhoods by the end of the parliament, despite current regeneration funding. The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods said existing investment, including the Pride in Place scheme, is unlikely to offset longer-term pressures facing councils and local economies.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police officer numbers have suffered their biggest fall in almost a decade, official figures show.
The number has dropped by more than 1,300 officers in 12 months, a decline of almost 1 per cent.
Home Office data show there are now 2,000 fewer police officers in England and Wales than the peak in 2024 of 147,098, which was driven by Boris Johnson’s surge to recruit 20,000 bobbies.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police forces will be able to consider even unproved allegations when vetting potential officers in the recruitment process.
The Met Police won a legal battle that saw the Court of Appeal overturn a High Court judgement from February last year that prevented forces from doing so.
The initial case arose when an officer accused of three rapes was removed and sought a judicial review.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley called the latest judgement "common sense" and aligned with expectations that "officers should not carry a back catalogue of alarming allegations".
[ more...]
Police Reform
Police officers in England and Wales would spend more time on the streets under sweeping reform plans to be outlined by the Home Secretary today. Shabana Mahmood will pledge to cut “red tape” and “unnecessary admin” which she says prevents officers from leaving their stations, while also promising faster response times for emergencies by setting a national standard for 999 calls.
[ more...]
Police Reform
A “British FBI” will be created to fight the most serious crime and help local police forces focus on tackling everyday offences. The National Police Service (NPS) will be established in England and Wales to tackle crimes such as terrorism, fraud and organised crime that are not constrained by areas, the Home Secretary announced.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Statement from APCC Chair, Emily Spurrell, on plans for police reform:
“We welcome the commitment in the White Paper to focus on protecting local communities and neighbourhood policing, and support the introduction of a National Police Service to enable consistency and drive performance.
“We are also pleased that the government has listened to us and highlighted the need to deliver a strong system of police governance and accountability.
“However, policing must be rooted in the local communities it serves, and this planned structure will place unprecedented power in the hands of just two people at the centre – the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of the new National Police Service. This concentration of policing power in England and Wales is constitutionally alien and brings enormous risks. It must be balanced by robust scrutiny and oversight, involving both local operational leaders and those who are the public’s voice in policing – Deputy Mayors and the successor to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs).
[ more...]
Police Reform
Non-crime hate incidents are to be scrapped in their current form because they have distracted police from fighting everyday crime, Shabana Mahmood has said.
Ms Mahmood, the Home Secretary, told The Telegraph she wanted officers to focus on “catching criminals, cutting crime, making sure that people in our neighbourhoods feel safe”.
[ more...]
Police Reform
Police in England and Wales will be given targets to respond to emergencies within 15 minutes in urban areas, and 20 minutes in rural areas, as part of a major overhaul to be outlined later.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will also pledge to get officers to spend more time on the streets, cutting "red tape" and "unnecessary admin" she says prevents them leaving their stations.
Mahmood said it was a response to an epidemic of "everyday crime", such as shoplifting and phone theft, which she said was going "unpunished".
[ more...]
Police Reform
There's a lot in the announcement, though none of the proposals are exactly new.
There have been calls for merging our 43 local police forces into bigger regional constabularies for two decades at least, almost as long as I've been a crime reporter.
The government argument - difficult to counter - is that it's a waste of money to have so many police fiefdoms with their own headquarters and management teams and different methods of procuring technology and equipment.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The government must stop burdening police officers with unsafe workloads and improve police pay and training if they want “professional” policing, the Police Federation has said, in response to sweeping Home Office changes to improve standards in the police.
Under the new plans, to be unveiled in a white paper on Monday, police officers in England and Wales will be required to hold and renew a “licence to practise” throughout their career in the future.
This will ensure officers “stay at the top of their game” by keeping up to date with the latest “problem solving and technological skills they need to catch more criminals”, the Home Office said.
[ more...]
Police Reform
A new National Police Service (NPS) will free up local forces to tackle everyday crime by taking over responsibility for counter-terror, fraud and organised crime investigations, the home secretary has said.
Shabana Mahmood told the BBC the NPS, which she has dubbed a "British FBI", was "absolutely not" about saving money but about designing a new policing model for England and Wales.
It will bring the work of existing agencies such as the National Crime Agency (NCA) and regional organised crime units under the same organisation, buying new technology such as facial recognition on behalf of all forces.
[ more...]
Police Mergers
The government is to radically reduce the number of police forces in England and Wales as part of what sources have called the largest reform of policing in decades.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will announce plans for police reform next week.
She will pledge to "significantly" cut the number of forces from its current level of 43, and tell them to focus on serious and organised crime. Police chiefs have been calling, external for the creation of 12 "mega forces" to save money and boost crime-fighting efforts.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Plans to increase council tax will help protect frontline officer numbers, a police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
Residents in Gloucestershire are facing a £25 increase in the section of their tax bills that covers policing, to help plug Gloucestershire Constabulary's £20m shortfall over the next four years.
PCC for the force, Chris Nelson, is waiting to hear if government will allow him to carry out the hike without a referendum. If approved, an average Band D household will pay £347 towards the force from April.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation rose in December to 3.4 per cent, up from 3.2 per cent in November, driven in part by higher prices for items such as tobacco and transport. The increase was slightly above expectations but analysts note inflation is still expected to ease later in 2026 as earlier rises in energy and regulated prices drop out of annual comparisons.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
South Yorkshire Police became the first force to go live with NMPP, marking the start of a national rollout that will modernise public contact.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council Public Contact portfolio, through its Digital Public Contact (DPC) programme, has launched the National My Police Portal (NMPP) – the first nationally delivered online portal built by policing designed to transform how the public connects with their local force.
Building on successful proof-of-concept work by several forces and partners, NMPP creates a consistent, secure, and trusted way for the public to access updates and communicate with officers. For the first time, policing has developed and deployed a single, national capability under NPCC governance, ensuring a standardised experience across England and Wales.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Derbyshire's police force has been fined £60,000 after officers were burned by petrol bombs thrown at them during riot training.
Four out of the 13 taking part suffered lower body injuries during the exercise in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, on 2 February 2021.
Three needed hospital treatment but all returned to work.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The IOPC said it has decided to use its ‘power of initiative’ to call-in the matter and independently investigate to determine if any officer or staff member may have a case to answer for misconduct.
“We have examined a wealth of evidence relating to the force’s planning for the match at Aston Villa on 6 November last year,” the IOPC said.
“As questions remain about individual roles, duties and planning for the game, we have determined an independent investigation is warranted.”
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Accordiing to the Home Office a recruitment boost in neighbourhood policing is on track to meet its target of an extra 3,000 officers by the spring.
Some 2,383 police and community support officers were in neighbourhood posts by the end of September last year, the Home Office said.
Last April, ministers set a target to recruit 3,000 officers into community policing in 12 months.
This is part of a wider pledge of an extra 13,000 neighbourhood police officers by the end of this Parliament.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Britain’s most senior police chief fighting financial crime has said that securing a conviction for scams may not be the best way to tackle fraud.
Millions of people are scammed by fraudsters every year, with more than £1bn lost, but there are just a few thousand convictions for fraud and forgery annually.
Pete O’Doherty, City of London Commissioner, said: “From an efficiency point of view, a conviction may not be ideal.”
[ more...]
Police Finances
Local police forces are not equipped to fight crime, government sources have told Sky News, with thousands of officers pulled off the street into desk jobs in the past decade.
"Crimes on our streets are going unpunished" and are "plaguing communities", a senior source warned, as the government prepares to announce significant reforms to policing this month.
Home Office figures shared with Sky News show the number of trained uniformed police officers in back-office roles like HR and IT support has surged by 40% in the past six years to more than 12,600.
[ more...]
Police Finances
New police officers should be put on the beat, not behind desks, Shabana Mahmood has told forces after a surge in bobbies doing backroom jobs.
The Home Secretary has scrapped a grant for police forces that provides additional funding if they meet officer headcount targets.
Ms Mahmood will replace the so-called officer maintenance grant with ring-fenced funding for neighbourhood officers.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Following the official launch of Report Fraud, a new, improved service for the reporting of incidents of fraud, APCC Joint Leads for Economic and Cyber crime Tijs Broeke and Nicolle Ndiweni-Roberts said:
“Cyber crime and fraud are the most common crimes in the UK, costing the economy billions every year, so we are pleased to support the launch of Report Fraud. This one-stop shop where victims can report crimes will transform the way law enforcement and industry are able to respond, using a multi-sector, intelligence-based approach. Importantly, it also offers specialist support to those impacted by these devastating crimes and provides information on ways to stay safe in cyberspace.
“Increasingly committed online, fraud is growing in scale and sophistication, targeting individuals, small businesses and major organisations alike, so it is vital policing has the tools required to tackle it. Despite fraud and cyber crime accounting for more than half of all crime in England and Wales, it receives just 1% of police funding. Given the size of the problem, we are determined to ensure fighting fraud is given the priority it deserves – too many people’s lives are shattered by criminals operating online whose sole motivation is greed.
“The creation of Report Fraud demonstrates a commitment across policing and other law enforcement agencies to respond more effectively to fraud. On behalf of the public, Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and Deputy Mayors will hold our chief constables to account so that more people are protected from fraudulent activity online.
“We encourage anyone who thinks they may be a victim of fraud to inform Report Fraud. By building the best possible intelligence picture, we have the greatest chance of catching those committing and directing these crimes.”
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Police Mergers
Writing for the Mail, the two chiefs argued for a reduction of police forces south of the border to anything between '10 to 15', amid fears the current 43 operating in England and Wales are regularly duplicating work.
They wrote: 'We run 43 forces, overlaid with regional collaborations and a thicket of national units and bodies creating inefficiency.
'We need around 10 to 15 fully capable forces, large enough to sustain vital specialist functions like murder investigations, firearms operations and serious and organised crime work.'
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Police Finances
The mayor plans to increase the policing precept part of council tax by £15 per year – the equivalent of £1.25 a month for an average Band D household. This is expected to raise an additional £60m.
The funds raised will pay for measures that will help tackle phone theft, including more enforcement blitzes and pro-active targeting of known offenders.
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Police and Crime General
Ministers will consult on a social media ban for the under-16s and toughen up rules on mobile phones in schools in an attempt to see off a backbench rebellion by more than 60 Labour MPs.
In the latest Downing Street climbdown, the government has dropped its objections to imposing age restrictions on social media use and will also look at banning children from accessing addictive features such as ‘infinite scrolling’.
Starmer has previously said he would “personally” be opposed to a social media ban, arguing that “it’s more about how you control the content that children can see”.
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Police Mergers
West Mercia Police is to restructure how it delivers policing by moving from away from five local policing areas to two.
From Monday, the new structure sees one local policing area (LPA) cover Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, with the other for Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
Prior to the changes, the force had separate LPAs covering Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, North Worcestershire, South Worcestershire and Herefordshire.
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Police Reform
The number of police forces should be reduced by three-quarters to free up more money for bobbies on the beat, two of the most senior police officers have said.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and Gavin Stephens, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said the 43 forces in England and Wales were wasting hundreds of millions of pounds duplicating services.
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Police Reform
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has called for a dramatic overhaul of the policing system as he said the current model is "so out of date".
Speaking on Sky News' Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Sir Mark said he believed there should be a reduction in the 43 police forces across England and Wales as a shake-up of the system is "overdue".
"The current policing model is a tweaked and bastardised version of what was designed in a 1962 royal commission.
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Recruitment and Retention
What is wrong with senior policemen, whose personal standards of conduct are now so dismal that the public finds it increasingly hard to trust them? The list of errors made by the ex-chief constable of the West Midlands, Craig Guildford, was breathtaking, yet he felt no need to go until the near-universality of official contempt for him made his position untenable.
Mr Guildford will be remembered as the policeman who used a fantasy football match, invented by artificial intelligence, to inform key operational decisions about a match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv last November. He banned the Israeli club’s fans from Birmingham, which was interpreted as anti-Semitic. His justification was a match Maccabi had played against West Ham: only it never happened.
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Recruitment and Retention
A former chief inspector who won a discrimination payout from West Midlands police says she warned officials not to reappoint its chief constable, who retired in disgrace on Friday having resisted calls to resign over the Maccabi Tel Aviv row.
Khizra Bano accused Craig Guildford of bullying and handed over a dossier of complaints about him but said she realised his reappointment was a “done deal”.
Guildford, who had secretly resigned and taken a period of leave to protect his pension, was rehired by Simon Foster, the police and crime commissioner. The decision was rubber-stamped by a local police and crime panel.
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Police and Crime General
The chief constable of West Midlands Police has retired after damning criticism of a decision to ban Israeli fans from a match against Aston Villa.
Craig Guildford's retirement was confirmed on Friday after both Downing Street and the home secretary said this week they had lost confidence in his leadership.
He faced numerous calls to resign after apologising for providing incorrect evidence to MPs, which included the denial that AI was used in a report which led to the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the game on 6 November.
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Economy & Public Finance
Figures show the UK economy grew by a faster-than-expected 0.3% in November after car production rebounded and the services sector got a boost.
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Police Reform
The new laws will hand Home Secretaries statutory powers to force the retirement, resignation or suspension of chief constables on performance grounds.
Currently, it is only police and crime commissioners who hold the power to dismiss a chief constable.
This comes after His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary found significant failings among the leadership of West Midlands Police after it recommended banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a match against Aston Villa.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “When a chief constable is responsible for a damaging failure of leadership, the public rightly expect the Home Secretary to act. And I intend to restore their ability to do so.
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Recruitment and Retention
Metropolitan Police staff have suspended their strike ahead of a vote on a new pay offer.
The planned strike from 19 to 24 January was due to involve 175 members of the Unite union, including call handlers who record crime reports and technicians and office staff who help service and dispatch police vehicles.
The union said talks with the force had resulted in "an improved pay offer" and members would be invited to vote on it.
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Recruitment and Retention
A police and crime commissioner has said she is unable to remove the pension of a chief constable facing a gross misconduct hearing over alleged workplace relationships.
Scott Chilton led Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary and retired from the force last year while under investigation.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones, while in the Hot Seat on BBC Radio Solent, said because there were no criminal proceedings it was "not legally permissible to do that".
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Justice
The courts minister has been accused of contradicting David Lammy over Labour’s plans to curb jury trials.
Sarah Sackman, the courts minister, told MPs on the commons justice committee that the changes will be retrospective for some defendants who have already chosen to have their cases heard in the Crown Court.
This would mean that even though defendants had chosen to have their case heard by a jury, they could fall foul of the changes and their case will be switched to the new judge-only courts.
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Recruitment and Retention
More than 300 Metropolitan Police officers and staff have declared their involvement in the Freemasons or other "hierarchical associations" after the force required them to do so last month, a High Court judge has said.
The Met announced in December that membership of the Freemasons or similar organisations would be added to its declarable associations policy.
Officers and staff were required to declare membership "past or present" of any organisation that was "hierarchical, has confidential membership and requires members to support and protect each other".
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Recruitment and Retention
Two male police officers were discriminated against on the basis of their gender when they were removed from their team and replaced by two female officers, a judge has ruled.
Suffolk constabulary was attempting to “rebalance” the proactive policing team, which was made up entirely of male officers at the time.
Before the men’s removal from the team, a female officer had decided to leave to pursue an alternative role. The vacant position was not filled.
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Police Finances
South Yorkshire Police will use money from its reserves to meet day-to-day expenses after financial errors left the force with a £65m hole in its budget.
The mistakes were discovered in 2024 after the former functions and responsibilities of the police and crime commissioner (PCC) role were transferred to the region's mayor, Oliver Coppard.
Policing minister Sarah Jones MP gave the force permission to use up to £17m from long-term capital reserves, and said that without the exception, it would have been unable to police effectively.
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Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner has warned a rise of £15 per year, per home, in police precept is needed to protect police services from a £4.6m funding gap.
The Wiltshire police and crime commissioner's office has said rising costs, including pay awards, National Insurance, fuel, utilities, essential equipment and increasing demand, has left Wiltshire Police with "no easy options left".
Ahead of inviting the public to share their views on the plan in a survey, PCC Philip Wilkinson stressed: "A smaller – or no – increase would put frontline services at risk".
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Police Reform
Cheshire's police and crime commissioner (PCC) has told the BBC he would "relish" the chance to become the county's first mayor.
Labour's Dan Price was elected as PCC in May 2024 but the government has decided to scrap the roles in England and Wales by 2028.
All three councils in Cheshire have backed plans to create a new combined authority - the Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority - which will be overseen by a directly elected mayor.
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Police Demand
Homicide in London has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, new figures released by the Metropolitan Police show.
The force said 97 homicides were recorded in 2025, the lowest figure since 2014, at a rate of 1.1 per 100,000 people, lower than New York (2.8), Berlin (3.2) and Milan (1.6).
It is the lowest homicide figure in London on record, once population is taken into account, the Met said.
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Justice
The backlog of nearly 80,000 trials clogging up the court system could be cleared within a decade if parliament agrees to slash the number of jury trials, David Lammy, the lord chancellor, has claimed.
In an interview with the Guardian, the deputy prime minister, who is facing a backbench rebellion over the proposals, has urged Labour MPs and the public to back a version of Canada’s judge-only trials in thousands of criminal cases in England and Wales.
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Police and Crime General
Senior MPs are preparing to tell the home secretary to sack the chief constable of West Midlands police after concluding that he “misled parliament” over the decision to ban Israeli football fans from a match in Birmingham.
Members of the home affairs select committee are understood to be “unanimous in their disappointment” at the evidence given by the force, with several believing it had “retrospectively gathered evidence to suit their decision making” rather than basing the ban on genuine intelligence at the time.
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Police Mergers
Plans to merge a police force into a regional constabulary would "dilute local policing", according to a body that represents rank-and-file officers.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is said to be considering reforms, which could see the number of forces in England and Wales cut from 43 mainly county-based forces to 12 regional ones, as reported by The Times.
Durham Police Federation chair Louise Guest said Durham Police was a "community-led force" and the link with local officers would be "eroded" if it became a region-wide operation with Cleveland and Northumbria.
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Police Finances
The Home Office has had to rescue a police force from going bankrupt for the first time over a £65million black hole in finances.
South Yorkshire Police has become the first force in the UK to issue a ‘114 notice’ asking the Government to step in to help.
It blamed a major ‘accounting error’ which went unnoticed for five years, plunging the force £65million in the red and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
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Police and Crime General
About 4,000 offenders in England will get targeted healthcare sessions during their probation appointments as part of a new pilot scheme.
Offenders are far more likely to have poor physical or mental health or addiction issues, which increases the likelihood of reoffending.
A recent report by the chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, found that half of offenders on probation smoked, many had drug or alcohol addiction issues and a majority had poor mental health. They were also less likely to receive screening for prostate, breast, lung or cervical cancers.
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Police Finances
Women who are victims of domestic abuse and stalking will be put at “serious risk” by Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to scrap prison sentences of less than a year, the victims’ commissioner has warned.
In her first statement as official watchdog, Claire Waxman said the law change undermined Sir Keir’s claim to be serious about protecting women and girls from violence.
Before Christmas, the Government unveiled its strategy for halving violence against women and girls in the next decade, a centrepiece of Labour’s general election manifesto.
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Recruitment and Retention
Two serial rapists were among 131 officers and staff in the Metropolitan Police who committed crimes or misconduct after they were not properly vetted, a review has found.
David Carrick, one of the UK's worst sex offenders, and Cliff Mitchell, who carried out a "campaign of rape" on two victims, were among the police officers who were not properly checked.
The cases were revealed in a vetting review of the 10 years up to the end of March 2023. Other serious crimes committed by officers and staff included drug use, violent attacks and affray.
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Police Finances
A Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) is aiming to avoid "over-burdening the taxpayer" with the rising cost of policing.
The size of the police tax precept paid by Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire residents has gone up by 54% since John Campion was elected in 2016, he says.
The Conservative PCC has now said "enough is enough," and while he had "no choice" about asking for a another tax rise this year, he also wanted the government to contribute more.
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Police Reform
The Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall has quit the Conservative Party.
Alison Hernandez was first elected in 2016 as a Conservative to take up the role overseeing Devon and Cornwall Police and was re-elected in May 2024 with a majority of almost 24,000 over her Labour rival.
The government announced the abolition of all police and crime commissioners (PCC) in November with the roles due to come to an end in May 2028.
Hernandez said she would continue in the role as an independent and had no plans to join any other party.
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Police Reform
Lincolnshire's police and crime commissioner (PCC) says he will leave the Conservative Party and serve out the remainder of his term as an Independent.
Marc Jones, who stood in three successful PCC elections and as a candidate for Parliament on behalf of the Tories, said his fight for fairer funding for Lincolnshire Police would be better served by stepping away from party politics.
It comes after the government announced it would abolish the PCC role and hand policing matters to local councils or elected mayors.
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Police and Crime General
Police officers have been told not to arrest people for cannabis possession if they can show that the drug is for medicinal use.
Officers will be told to treat people with “medicinal” cannabis as patients until proven otherwise, according to guidance endorsed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).
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Police and Crime General
Novice motorists will face a stricter drink-drive limit, meaning they will not be able to risk having a single pint or small glass of wine before getting behind the wheel.
The effective ban on driving after drinking alcohol for recently qualified drivers will make the UK one of the strictest countries in Europe.
Ministers will announce that the limit of 80mg per 100ml of blood will be cut to just 20mg for learners and those in their two-year probationary period.
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Police Reform
Police and crime commissioners to be abolished as part of sweeping reforms, but critics warn ‘upheaval’ will do more harm than good.
Emily Spurrell, the PCC for Merseyside and chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said: “We fear that the best elements of the model, which is still evolving, will be lost in the name of police reform.”
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Economy & Public Finance
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced that the spring statement will take place on 3 March. The Treasury has requested the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to prepare forecasts, as concerns grow over the impact of tax speculation on consumer spending and business investment.
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Police Reform
Elected police chiefs have accused the government of relying on “insubstantial evidence” after the home secretary announced plans to scrap the roles.
Shabana Mahmood said directly elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs), introduced under the Conservatives in 2012, were a “failed experiment”. Their powers will ?be handed to elected mayors or new “local police and crime boards”.
PCCs have long been accused of being irrelevant, expensive and ineffective. Early on they came under heavy criticism over expenses: the PCC of Cumbria was forced to repay ?£700 spent on chauffeurs in 2013. ?Elections were apathetic affairs: Staffordshire recorded a turnout of ?11.6% in 2012.
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Police Demand
Racial and religious hate crime on public transport is on the rise, according to new data obtained by the Guardian, as community groups report how people are restricting their daily journeys because they fear abuse or assault.
Police forces across the country have recorded an increase in hate crimes over the past year, with a significant rise in racially motivated offences in Scotland as well as religious hate crimes targeting Muslims in England and Wales.
But public transport creates a particular dynamic where aggressors are often emboldened by alcohol, can isolate their targets and then exit at the next stop.
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