Recruitment and Retention
A new survey has revealed the significant financial struggles police officers are facing and its impact on their mental health and job satisfaction.
According to Metfriendly’s latest Police Family Finance Index (PFFI), 64% of police officers and 47% of police staff reported having current financial concerns. Furthermore, 55% of police officers and 51% of police staff reported a high level of stress.
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Technology
On Monday, a former Scout leader and school housemaster was found guilty of 54 child sex offences, having already pleaded guilty to 43 crimes at an earlier hearing.
Chester Crown Court heard how, between 1968 and 1995, Richard Burrows had systematically abused 24 young boys across the Cheshire, West Midlands and West Mercia areas.
But that reckoning came some 27 years after Burrows – now aged 80 – had initially been due in court following his arrest in April 1997. Rather than attend his hearing that December, Burrows – who had been bailed – fled abroad under the stolen identity of a terminally ill acquaintance named Peter Smith.
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Recruitment and Retention
A police force has "more officers in this county than we've ever had", according to its police and crime commissioner (PCC).
The Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Panel also heard there was "greater visibility of policing" in 20 crime hotspots thanks to a £1m government grant.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough PCC Darryl Preston said: "The standard [officer] figure we use is 1,732, but at any one time we have actually got more than that."
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Police Finances
Avon and Somerset Police force faces an £11m deficit by 2029/30, according to its Police and Crime Commissioner.
Speaking to BBC Radio Bristol's John Darvall, Clare Moody said "resourcing across the public sector is a challenge".
She added: "The medium-term financial plan is a balanced budget for next year.
"Looking over the coming years we do have that challenge by the end of 2029/30, we are looking at an £11m deficit by that point."
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Police Finances
Sending state pensioners to prison saves the UK up to £41m a year, new figures show.
According to a Freedom of Information request by The Telegraph, 3,562 people aged 66 and above are currently incarcerated and cannot receive their state pension until they are released.
Radical campaigners are now calling for the payments to be made in full, adding the policy amounted to an “additional punishment”.
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Prisons
The government has triggered an emergency measure to use police cells to hold prisoners, as jails are close to being full again.
'Operation Safeguard' is an agreement between the National Police Chief Council and the prison service allowing inmates to be held in police cells where prisons are full.
It was used in May last year for a number of months. Ministers are expected to announce the policy later today.
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Justice
It is undoubtedly true that some migrants to the UK have “faced imprisonment, torture or rape” prior to fleeing their home country and may suffer higher rates of mental health difficulties, depression and anxiety. It is one of the reasons why the UK granted asylum to more than 50,000 people in the past year. But other than prompting sympathy, and perhaps charity, how should we respond to such facts?
This description of the plight of refugees appears in the Equal Treatment Bench Book, a 352-page guide for judges on how to treat defendants fairly. Published by the Judicial College, the organisation responsible for training the judiciary in England and Wales, the guidance aims to increase understanding of the circumstances of people appearing in courts.
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Prisons
This week government figures are likely to show the prison population back to where it was before the last early release scheme.
But even though hundreds of prisoners have served only 40% of their sentences, there is a cohort of the prison population who have served extended sentences, years beyond their minimum term.
IPP sentences (imprisonment for public protection) were introduced in 2005 and abolished in 2012. But the law wasn't backdated, so the legacy of prisoners serving indefinite sentences continues.
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Police and Crime General
The drop came between April and December 2024, with decreases seen in gun discharges, serious violence and burglary, the Police and Crime Commissioner's public scrutiny meeting has confirmed.
The meeting, which reviews Merseyside Police’s progress against the priorities set by the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for the region Emily Spurrell, showed there were nearly 9,000 fewer crimes in 2024 compared to 2023.
Officials will confirm later today that residential burglaries decreased by more than 20 percent during this timeframe when compared to the same period the previous year, with vehicle crime dropping by more than 22 percent.
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Police and Crime General
Victims of Hillsborough, Grenfell, the Manchester Arena terror attack and the Aberfan disaster have said decades of suffering could have been avoided if a new charter compelling the police to tell the truth was introduced sooner.
The Hillsborough Charter, external will oblige organisations to think about victims rather than their own reputations.
This is the first time victims from four of the UK's most public and harrowing tragedies have come together to speak publicly.
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Police Demand
Developed by the Vulnerability Knowledge Practice Programme (VKPP), it reveals that around a third of CSAE contact crimes take place within the family environment and more than half of offences (where the age was known) were committed by children aged ten to 17.
Offending ranged from experimental image-based abuse to serious contact offences.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) says based on datasets collected from 44 police forces, this national snapshot gives “refreshed, enhanced insight and analysis” into the scale and nature of reported CSAE, trends in offending, including crime types, and presents profiles of both victims and perpetrators.
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Prisons
It says dealing with the consequences is “taking valuable resources away from preventing crime and supporting victims”.
At his first press conference as Prime Minister last July, Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged that there were “too many prisoners” as jails across England and Wales were stretched beyond capacity. Within weeks, his government introduced emergency measures to ease pressure on the system.
But even the early release of thousands of people has offered only temporary respite, as the prison population now stands at a higher level than it did on the morning after the general election, says the Howard League.
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Police and Crime General
Criminals are using blank-firing pistols, often purchased legally by farmers to scare off birds or used as theatre props, to commit violence, police chiefs have warned.
The Turkish-made weapons, which can be bought for as little as £100, are sold with a blocked barrel but can be converted into killing machines in just 20 minutes using tools available from any DIY store.
About a third of all shootings in London over the past two years, including at least two murders, are thought to have involved converted blank-firing pistols rather than conventional handguns, such as Glocks, according to Scotland Yard.
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Justice
As few as one in 200 crimes results in an offender being sent to jail, analysis of official figures shows as career criminals escape justice.
An estimated 13 million crimes were committed in the year to September 2024, but just 71,573 jail sentences were handed down by judges or magistrates, equivalent to 0.5 per cent, according to the analysis.
Separate data show that more than half of the offences for which someone was convicted were committed by just under 10 per cent of convicts, prolific criminals responsible for multiple crimes.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy shrank at the start of 2025, according to official figures which had been expected to show further low growth. The Office for National Statistics said that output declined by 0.1 per cent during the month following the 0.4 per cent growth seen in December, after a growth figure of 0.1 per cent had been predicted by a majority of economists.
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Police and Crime General
The Home Office has paid a police force £2 million to monitor a camp for asylum seekers despite no migrants ever being held there.
Documents released by the Home Office show it paid Lincolnshire Police £1,936,531 to protect and oversee policing of RAF Scampton, which was once the Dambusters squadron’s wartime air base.
The camp was developed by the Tories to house migrants but never used.
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Police Demand
Nearly a quarter of Britons have witnessed shoplifting in the past year and seen physical or verbal abuse of shop workers as criminals become “bolder and more aggressive”.
A survey carried out for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) by the market research firm Opinium found Nottingham to be a UK hotspot for retail crime where 32% of residents said they had witnessed shoplifting. London was close behind on 29%.
Southampton, Leeds and Manchester were all above the national average, while Liverpool, Brighton and Sheffield witnessed less shop theft than other major cities during the year.
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Police and Crime General
Widening terrorism law to include violent killers such as the Southport attacker would skew the threat level, risk overwhelming the police and result in “unacceptable” restrictions on freedom of expression, the government’s terror watchdog has concluded.
Jonathan Hall KC firmly rebuffed a suggestion by Sir Keir Starmer that terrorism law be adjusted to address the threat of loner misfits fixated on violence such as Axel Rudakubana, who killed three young girls in the mass stabbing in Southport last year.
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Police and Crime General
Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Police and Crime Commissioner has announced she intends to stand to become one of the region’s first directly-elected Mayors.
Donna Jones hopes to be the Conservative candidate for the new position of Mayor of Hampshire and the Solent, in 2026.
The government launched a public consultation on devolution and the idea of a strategic combined authority Monday on 17 February.
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Police Demand
More than half of child sexual abuse reports in England and Wales in 2023 were made against children aged 10 to 17, according to new police figures.
The offences range from experimental image-based abuse, such as sending nude images of themselves, to serious contact offences, including rape.
The figures, analysed by the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme, show that in 2023, 52% of reports of child sexual abuse involved children offending against other children. The most common age of the offenders was 14.
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Recruitment and Retention
Many early-career officers are considering leaving the force due to financial pressures, job dissatisfaction, the toll on their family lives and mental wellbeing.
The findings, which raise concerns about the long-term sustainability of policing as a career, come from the latest Police Family Finance Index, an annual, independent survey of more than 10,000 police officers and staff.
The latest report reveals that a quarter (24 per cent) of officers with one to five years’ service are contemplating leaving policing altogether, citing financial stress and workplace pressures. Additionally, one in five (18 per cent) Officers in this experience bracket are considering taking on second jobs, and 13 per cent of those with less than 12 months’ service are already exploring additional employment opportunities.
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Police Finances
A man arrested for shouting "who elected him?" during a proclamation ceremony for the King has been paid £2,500 in compensation.
Thames Valley Police said it accepted the grounds of the offence for which Symon Hill was arrested in September 2022 "were unlawful".
The 47-year-old had been walking home from church when he stopped and called out during the ceremony at Carfax Tower in Oxford and was handcuffed and arrested.
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Prisons
Domestic abusers and sex offenders in England and Wales will be rehabilitated by less-experienced staff with fewer qualifications from June, prompting warnings from a watchdog that the plans must be closely monitored to ensure public safety.
Proposals approved by ministers will roll out behaviour programmes for offenders to be delivered by “band 3” staff who are not fully qualified probation officers.
The work is currently carried out by highly skilled “band 4” probation officers who have extensive experience dealing with rapists, paedophiles, violent partners and online abusers.
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Justice
It is still dark when cars pull up to a block of flats and a dozen police officers in plain clothes and stab vests rush their way up to the first floor.
They break down a flimsy front door hoping that behind it they will find the man running an “exceptionally busy” crack and heroin county line in Greater Manchester. The flat does not belong to him but to a vulnerable female drug user who officers suspect may be being exploited by criminals in a process known as cuckooing.
The term, inspired by the cuckoo’s habit of using other birds’ nests, describes how criminals take control of a person’s home to establish a base for illegal activities, most often dealing or to stash weapons. Victims are usually vulnerable adults suffering from a disability, drug or alcohol addiction or social isolation.
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Police and Crime General
Devon and Cornwall's Police and Crime Commissioner has questioned the validity of allegations of serious sexual offences made against the force's suspended chief constable.
Will Kerr was suspended in July 2023 after an investigation was opened into "serious allegations of sexual offences" in Northern Ireland, which he denies.
Alison Hernandez said she was "frustrated" by the length of the suspension and questioned why no action had been taken against Mr Kerr.
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Police Demand
Domestic abuse is a "massive" issue which requires attention from authorities "day in, day out", Surrey's police and crime commissioner has said.
Lisa Townsend expressed her concerns as figures showed Surrey Police recorded 9,724 cases over the last year, an increase on 9,406 from the previous year.
In Tandridge alone, in the first fortnight of January there were 63 arrests in the district, 29 of which were related to domestic abuse.
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Police and Crime General
The new chief constable of Humberside Police has been confirmed as Chris Todd.
Mr Todd, who is the current assistant chief constable of Northern Ireland, was named as the preferred candidate for the role last month.
He was confirmed by the Humberside Police and Crime panel on Friday and will officially start in his new role on 7 April.
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Police and Crime General
A police officer has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving after a mum was killed when her vehicle was hit by an unmarked police car.
Heather Smedley, 53 died after the police vehicle - which was chasing a suspected stolen car in Royton, Oldham on 23 December 2022 - collided with her Peugeot 108.
Police constable Mark Burrows of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has been charged after the force referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
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Police Finances
Potentially “thousands” of policing roles were miscounted by the last government, meaning cuts to officer numbers were “even worse” than expected, the Home Secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper told MPs the Conservative government had cut the number of neighbourhood policing officers “probably by more than 10,000”, but that the method of measuring was “so ropey and so all over the place we can’t even be certain what the precise cuts were”.
The Government’s new Crime and Policing Bill includes a range of measures from tackling knife crime to anti-social behaviour, which will be supported by the recruitment of 13,000 extra neighbourhood policing roles.
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Police Demand
A police force has had to take on new staff and build kennels in stations to cope with the extra workload since the ban on XL bully dogs came in last year.
Merseyside Police has spent about £400,000 more on its dog section in the last 12 months compared with the year before.
In February 2024 it became a criminal offence to own an XL bully except with a special exemption.
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Justice
There have been renewed calls for reform of the Sentencing Council after it emerged that it recommends criminals be sentenced to less than half the maximum legislated by parliament.
The council’s sentencing guidelines for the offence of domestic burglary state that the range of punishment should be a community order or up to six years in custody. These guidelines were set in July 2022, almost a decade after parliament changed the law to increase the maximum sentence for domestic burglary to 14 years.
For assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH), the Sentencing Council recommends a punishment ranging from a fine to four years in custody. This is despite the maximum sentence under the law being five years in prison.
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Police Demand
When Sean Edwards found his car and his neighbours’ houses had been broken into in Longsight, Greater Manchester, in 2022, he was not expecting much from the police based on previous experiences.
“I expected them to dust for prints and take statements, then give us a crime reference number and nothing else happen,” he said.
“Similar had happened before,” he added, but this time, “the policeman who saw us was really good”.
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Police Finances
Hundreds of police officers have benefited from a loophole that boosts their retirement income, new data reveals.
The figures, obtained exclusively by The Telegraph, show that almost 800 serving officers in England and Wales have used their force’s “retire and return” scheme over the past five years.
The schemes allow officers to return at the same rank after a month’s break to avoid reductions to their pension or lump sum. More than half of those retiring and returning are Metropolitan Police officers.
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Police and Crime General
The Government is set to introduce legislation to Parliament today which would grant police the power to enter homes without a warrant if a stolen phone has been tracked to the location. The Crime and Policing Bill also seeks to expand police powers to seize off-road bikes and e-scooters alongside measures targeting knife crime, retail theft, anti-social behaviour and violence against women and children.
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Police and Crime General
Having an XL bully is “like owning a loaded firearm”, police have said after officers had to unload 19 rounds into two dogs to stop a “ferocious” attack on an 84-year-old man.
The victim, who was left fighting for his life in hospital, was walking along a residential street when he was dragged into a garden and mauled at about 6.40pm on Monday.
Cheshire constabulary said an XL bully had escaped from a nearby property before it attacked the man.
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Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police needs to improve how it handles cases of missing children, according to a police watchdog.
A report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) into the force’s handling of the sexual and criminal exploitation of children found there had been “positive progress” since a previous report in June 2023.
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Recruitment and Retention
The second in command at the Metropolitan Police is to retire after a career of more than 35 years in policing.
Deputy Commissioner Dame Lynne Owens, started out as a PC in Catford, south-east London, in 1989.
She has had several other high profile roles, including Director General of the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the first female Chief Constable of Surrey Police.
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Police Demand
Non-crime hate incidents could be renamed rather than being scrapped, a senior policing figure has suggested.
Lord Herbert, the chairman of the College of Policing, said the idea of rebranding the controversial powers was being considered amid a growing backlash.
Challenged at a meeting in the House of Lords over the use of NCHIs, Lord Herbert acknowledged that they were “contradictory, alarming and confusing”, and said renaming them was one option under consideration.
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Police and Crime General
Under new measures, police will also no longer need to apply for warrants to search premises where stolen items have been electronically located, particularly mobile phones.
The Home Office said it was one of the “biggest legislative updates to crime and policing for decades”, with a comprehensive package of new laws to “tackle head-on the anti-social behaviour, shop theft and street crime that is plaguing our streets”.
The enhanced powers against theft of mobile phones means police will no longer need a warrant to search properties where stolen items have been electronically geolocated.
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Police and Crime General
The government has published its Crime and Policing Bill. In response, APCC Chair, Emily Spurrell, said:
“This is a major piece of legislation designed to tackle a host of issues that we know members of the public really care about – so-called low-level crimes that blight neighbourhoods, as well as serious high-harm crimes, the threat of which make people feel unsafe.
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Technology
A rape victim has slammed the police's decision to start trialling the use of AI to transcribe victim impact statements.
Hertfordshire Constabulary has piloted the use of Anathem Digital Assistant to transcribe and generate documents for witness statements or interview notes.
The model, which claims to be the 'AI for frontline workers', says it will save police officers an hour a day and will prevent victims from extended waiting times.
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Justice
Barristers have attacked the outsourcing giant Serco for worsening the backlogs in Britain’s criminal courts, warning that judges are “powerless” in punishing private contractors.
Mary Prior KC, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), hit out at the private contractors who run prison transport services in England and Wales over repeated failures to bring prisoners to court on time.
Ms Prior said: “Every court user is frustrated. Sometimes it causes a trial to be adjourned. At other times it means that witnesses are left waiting for hours at a time. Every other participant has to be at court on time except for the person that the court cannot start without – the accused.”
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Police and Crime General
Two months before Rishi Sunak called a July election, Sir Keir Starmer promised to “level up” England in a way never countenanced by Boris Johnson.
The Labour leader released a plan for a wholesale transfer of power from Westminster and Whitehall to the regions, one that could end England’s status as one of the developed world’s most centralised nations.
Since 1974, when Michael Heseltine, as local government minister, ripped up the map of historic English counties, changes to the structure of local government have been piecemeal.
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Recruitment and Retention
London’s police force has been hit by a fresh recruitment scandal after it emerged it hired more than 1,000 officers without obtaining references before they started work.
Many of the new recruits are believed to have been employed following the 2021 kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, an officer in the Metropolitan Police’s elite parliamentary and diplomatic protection squad.
The force’s failure to properly check references over an extended period of time is a setback for Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, who has pledged to root out rogue officers following the jailing of Couzens and his colleague, David Carrick, a serial rapist.
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Justice
Reform of joint enterprise laws can help to solve the crisis facing the justice system, a review of the criminal courts has been told by experts.
Lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood launched the independent, “once in a generation” inquiry into criminal courts in December, seeking “bold thinking” on tackling the record crown court caseload.
Two legal campaigners, Keir Monteith KC and Prof Eithne Quinn, of the University of Manchester, have since told the review – led by Sir Brian Leveson – that “considering the overuse of joint enterprise” will “enhance fairness” and help tackle the backlog of prosecutions.
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Justice
Changes must be made to the way court cases are prioritised, barristers and victims’ advocates have said, with some trials already being scheduled into 2028.
The existing system means judges must schedule trials for defendants who are held in custody within six months of arrest unless a legal application is made, regardless of the severity of their alleged offence, while those on bail have no set time limit. This means victims of serious crimes including rape face years-long waits for trials, while less serious crimes are bumped ahead in the queue.
Mary Prior KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said the system was formed before the current problem of backlogs. “If someone is supplying drugs but is in custody, that case will take priority over a case where someone is a victim of burglary, fraud or rape and the perpetrator is on bail,” she told the Observer.
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Police and Crime General
A police force is training dogs to identify drugs associated with drink spiking.
Thames Valley Police said its pilot scheme would involve dogs that can already track down cash, explosives and sim cards.
"This is a relatively new tactic that we are developing each time our dogs conduct training or go out and about," said Det Supt Jon Capps, the force's head of rape and sexual offences.
Spiking is the action of putting a drug into someone's drink, or into their body through another method, without their consent.
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Police and Crime General
Child criminal exploitation and "cuckooing" are set to become specific criminal offences as part of new legislation being introduced to Parliament next week.
The Crime and Policing Bill will also include measures that could see restriction orders put on people thought to be at risk of exploiting children for criminal means.
Cuckooing is when the home of a vulnerable person is taken over by criminals who use it as a base for illegal activities, such as drug dealing.
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Economy & Public Finance
The surplus in government finances was £15.4 billion in January, the highest level for the month since records began more than three decades ago. However the figure was much lower than the £20.5 billion predicted by the UK’s official forecaster, raising speculation Chancellor Rachel Reeves will either have to cut public spending or increase taxes next month to meet her self-imposed rules for the economy.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK’s inflation rate increased from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent in January, the highest level in 10 months.
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Justice
A new report from the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has exposed the “stark extent of racial disproportionality” in violence affecting children and young people.
It is calling for action across government, youth justice, education, healthcare and policing to tackle the impact of violence on young people from certain ethnic backgrounds.
The YEF report highlights that despite making up just five per cent of 16-24-year-olds in England and Wales, black young people account for 34 per cent of homicide victims in this age group. They are also five times more likely to receive custodial sentences for homicide.
The research says that the systems meant to protect children from violence – across policing, youth justice, health and education – are not equally accessible.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK's inflation rate jumps from 2.5% to 3.0% in January, the highest level in 10 months
It means that, on average, something which cost £1 a year ago now costs £1.03 - here's what else it means for your money
Today's figure was driven in part by air fares, food and private school fees, the Office for National Statistics says
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Police and Crime General
A police commissioner has made a plea for new information after a councillor admitted he had been accused of having sex with an underage girl.
Danielle Stone, Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC), was speaking after Matthew Binley, now a North Northamptonshire councillor, told party colleagues the allegation stemmed from 2009 while he was serving with the county's police force.
His admission to colleagues was first reported in the NN Journal blog.
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Police Finances
The West Midlands police and crime commissioner (PCC) has committed £188,000 to double the region's fleet of mobile speed camera vans.
Simon Foster said it meant the force could monitor more "hot spots" to catch speeding drivers.
He said he had invested £130,000 to purchase three new vans – and approved funding for a fourth worth £58,000 to bring the number to eight in total.
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Police and Crime General
A burglar who was caught after triggering a Home Alone-style trap at a house in Northumberland has been jailed.
Paul Howell, 56, was attempting to break into a property in Blyth - but fled when a bucket of water soaked his feet after tripping a hidden line of string just before 3am on 9 November last year, police said.
The householders set the trap following reports of a number of attempted burglaries.
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Prisons
A new report warns that UK prison conditions have "drastically deteriorated" since maintenance work was privatized, with prisons facing rodent infestations, crumbling infrastructure, and security failures. The Prison Officers Association is calling for maintenance contracts to be brought back in-house, citing safety risks and past refusals by European courts to extradite suspects due to "inhumane" conditions.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy grew 0.1 per cent in late 2024, avoiding immediate recession. Annual GDP rose 0.9 per cent, while GDP per capita fell for two quarters.
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Economy & Public Finance
Ministers are reportedly trying to “mission-wash” every item of spending in their departments, according to officials, before a spending review at which the Chancellor has demanded they justify every pound they receive. Secretaries of state and their officials are looking for ways to link their spending to one of the Government’s main priorities – growth, net zero, crime, education, immigration and the NHS – in order to avoid sharp budget cuts this summer, sources say.
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Justice
Avon and Somerset Police, in collaboration with Somerset Domestic Abuse Service (delivered by The YOU Trust) and Somerset Council, is launching a new initiative to enhance support for high-risk domestic abuse victims in Somerset.
Building on the success of last year’s trial across Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset, Operation Balearic aims to provide immediate safeguarding support during a victim’s most vulnerable moments while also strengthening investigative outcomes against perpetrators.
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Technology
A new AI system trained to identify knives could help “transform” how police forces tackle knife crime, researchers have said.
Knife Hunter, a system developed by the Institute for People-Centred AI at the University of Surrey, can help police forces identify weapons and then trace their origins more quickly, and has been developed in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police.
The research team said it can allow police to more easily log weapons found, recovered or seized, trace retail or illegal import channels and monitor geographical trends – as well as see reports the system generates on knife crime patterns to help support policing and inform policymaking.
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Police Demand
The mother of a school boy who was stabbed to death in a case of mistaken identity says she feels “sad and hopeless” over the increase in knife violence among young people.
Pooja Kanda, 47, from Wolverhampton, says it takes her back to the day her son was killed every time she hears of another teenager losing their life to knife crime in the UK.
Ronan Kanda, 16, was murdered by two teenagers – who had bought a set of swords and a machete online – as he walked home from a friend’s house in June 2022.
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Prisons
Sex offenders and domestic abusers are among 13,000 convicted criminals whose rehabilitation courses have been cancelled by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) because of probation officers’ “impossible” workloads.
Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, said they had to be axed as they had not completed them before their sentences expired in the three years up to March 2024. She blamed the previous Tory Government that had left the probation service with a workload that was “quite simply impossible” to fulfil.
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Recruitment and Retention
Sacked police officers accused of rape and grooming a 13-year-old girl could be reinstated following a landmark court case.
More than 300 Metropolitan Police officers and staff who were stripped of their warrant cards under a vetting scheme introduced after the murder of Sarah Everard could return to the force following a judicial review brought by a sergeant.
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Police and Crime General
Taking place between February 5 and 7, Counter Terrorism Policing, the Home Office and Ministry of Defence planned and conducted a national exercise to test the response to a large-scale security incident, such as a terrorist attack.
The exercise – known as Octacine 2 – was part of the Government’s regular counter-terrorism efforts. The focus was to test the ability of police and military to work together in extreme circumstances, as well as familiarising personnel with different sites and participating in joint briefings.
Octacine 2 built on a previous, similar exercise and was designed to simulate the deployment of military personnel to support the Strategic Armed Policing Reserve.
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Police Finances
A project to revamp and modernise a police contact and control room (CCR) has been praised for "enormously" improving its performance.
Tim Passmore, Suffolk's Police and Crime Commissioner, said a £1.4m investment in the scheme was "paying dividends" and he was confident better response times would "play a major role in keeping crime levels down".
In September 2023, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services rated Suffolk Police inadequate for the way it responded to calls and also raised concerns about the time it took to answer 101 non-emergency calls.
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Police Demand
A Cornish shopkeeper said he's made more than 50 citizen's arrests in the last two years to tackle shoplifting as he doesn't feel supported by the police.
Martin Gaunt, 62, who runs the gift shop 'Happy Piranha' in Truro, said he has been left with no choice but to take matters into his own hands, and has been detaining suspects until the police arrive.
He said his actions have cut the number of thefts in his shop by 80 percent.
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Recruitment and Retention
Policing has been left in a "hopeless position" following a High Court ruling that forces cannot dismiss officers by removing their vetting clearance, Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said.
It comes after the court ruled against the UK's largest police force in what has been described as a "test case" that officials say will have major implications for the sacking of police officers accused of misconduct.
It was decided the force was wrong to remove the vetting of Sergeant Lino Di Maria, who had faced rape allegations - which he denied.
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Justice
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched a new £5.4m service to ensure vulnerable adults in contact with the police, including those taking part in voluntary police interviews, have timely access to an independent appropriate adult to support them.
The first-ever London wide scheme will safeguard vulnerable adults’ rights, entitlements and welfare, ensuring that they are treated in a fair and just manner, and are able to participate in police proceedings effectively.
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Police and Crime General
The Deputy Prime Minister has announced a package of new measures to extend devolution to more areas of England that could see the role and responsibilities of seven Police and Crime Commissioners move under six regional Mayors that look set to be elected in 2026.
In what the government is calling a “devolution revolution,” six areas of the country will be given “sweeping new powers” in “one of the largest ever single packages of mayoral devolution in England.” That could lead to over 80% of England coming under devolved arrangements as a result of the Devolution Priority Programme. The following areas have agreed to join the programme:
Cumbria
Cheshire & Warrington
Norfolk & Suffolk
Greater Essex
Sussex & Brighton
Hampshire & Solent
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Recruitment and Retention
A police force looks likely to retain its 99 community support officers (PCSOs) after previously announcing plans to get rid of them.
Last month, Essex Police said it needed to make drastic savings to mitigate a budget shortfall of £5.3m.
However, the government said on Friday it would invest £100m in policing, of which Essex Police would receive £2.3m.
The force said it still planned to cut 65 staff roles, and increase its share of council tax.
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Police Finances
An extra £1.1 billion for the police represents a “drop in the ocean” for England’s biggest force, an MP has warned.
Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney said that central London protests had regularly “abstracted away” neighbourhood police officers from her Richmond Park constituency, while Labour MP Chris Vince warned of a “void of experience” across the country as a result of cuts.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson confirmed police forces throughout England and Wales would receive £17.5 billion throughout 2025/26, up from £16.4 billion this year.
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Economy & Public Finance
In a bid to create a more "agile and modern" Civil Service, the Government has announced that top civil servants could face dismissal if they fail to achieve departmental savings. Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said leaders must be held accountable for efficient spending, as departments seek to cut five per cent from their budgets.
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Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England has halved its growth forecast for this year as it cut interest rates to the lowest level for more than 18 months.
The economy is now expected to grow by 0.75% in 2025, the Bank said, down from its previous estimate of 1.5%.
The government has made growing the economy one of its key aims. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC he was "not satisfied with growth" and the downgraded forecast "just spurs us on".
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Police and Crime General
A police officer who admitted assaulting a man while on duty has been ordered to do unpaid work.
PC Craig Simpson, 39, repeatedly punched Mark Pettigrew, 30, after he was asked to leave a gig at Glasgow's Hydro venue on 11 March 2023.
The police officer hit Mr Pettigrew on the head at least four times, causing his nose to swell.
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Police and Crime General
Yvette Cooper has backed the use of metal detectors in schools in the wake of the fatal stabbing of a teenager in Sheffield.
The Home Secretary said she wanted “much stronger” action to tackle knife and youth crime amid a record rise in offences across multiple regions including London.
She was responding on a LBC phone-in to Lisa Theobald whose 20-year-old son Ryan was stabbed to death during a night out after an altercation with a group of men in Doncaster.
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Economy & Public Finance
Rachel Reeves has been warned by economists that she will have no choice but to cut spending or increase taxes because any leeway in the public finances has “evaporated”. The Chancellor has been given official estimates on the state of the economy by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) but is expected to resist calls to hold an emergency budget when the forecasts are published on March 26.
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Police Finances
Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen’s plans to boost policing and deliver the improvements local people have asked for have been fully approved.
The County Durham and Darlington PCC, who has promised to keep residents and businesses at the heart of her safety plans, presented her budget for policing in 2025-26 to the area’s Police and Crime Panel on Monday (3 Feb).
The proposals, which were unanimously agreed, included her recommendation to increase the amount of council tax paid by residents towards policing by £14 a year – an increase of just 27p a week for an average (Band D) property.
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Police Demand
Councils have called for more funding from the Government for council dog-teams after warnings that they are facing substantial financial pressures following the XL Bully ban and reports of a shortage of Dog Legislation Officers. The LGA warned that the ban placed substantial financial pressures on councils and said: “In addition to training, implementation and opportunity costs by council dog-team officers, it caused a sharp rise in private kennelling and other payments that strained already scarce local authority resources”.
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Police Finances
West Mercia Police could cut 150 staff jobs despite a potential council tax rise.
The area's Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) John Campion wants to increase its council tax precept by almost 5% for the next financial year.
But, said Mr Campion, "the force is facing challenges as a result of inflation and other financial pressures that the central government fund isn't meeting".
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Police Finances
The Home Office has announced an extra £100m for neighbourhood policing in England and Wales, as part of its pledge to put more officers on the ground by 2029.
It comes on top of an initial £100m announced in December, when the government made recruiting an extra 13,000 officers into neighbourhood roles one of its central pledges.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Restoring local policing will not happen overnight, but this funding boost will get more officers into our town centres and rural areas."
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Police Demand
Retailers have suffered unprecedented annual levels of shoplifting losses and incidents of violence and abuse against staff, according to industry data, although one major chain has told Sky News there are now signs of a fightback.
The British Retail Association (BRC) used the publication of its annual retail crime survey, covering the 12 months to April 2024, to demand an urgent police and government response to mounting industry losses and incidents of assault.
The survey showed £2.2bn of recorded store losses from theft - up from £1.8bn over the previous 12 months.
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Police and Crime General
A policing chief has torn up a diversity guide that told officers not to use the term “black sheep” saying the public want crime solved not “virtue signalling”.
In a statement to The Telegraph, Jonathan Ash-Edwards, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, said he had ordered a review of all such documents that “damage public trust and confidence in policing”.
It comes after The Telegraph revealed the nine-page diversity guide for staff at Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire forces that told police not to use the terms “black sheep” and “blacklisted” in case they offended someone.
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Recruitment and Retention
Essex Police has revealed plans to make all 99 of its PCSOs redundant in an effort to balance its budget.
The force - and its police, fire and crime commissioner - also proposed cutting 65 other staff roles and reducing the pay of all other officers.
Essex Police said it had been given "inadequate" funding from government and was faced with a budget shortfall of £5.3m.
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Economy & Public Finance
The near record-high level of UK government revenues is not “uncommon” among advanced economies, analysis has shown.
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Police and Crime General
As a result, forces have had to increase their kennel capacity by a third, according to the latest figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC)
The NPCC said it expects a 500 per cent increase in police costs for dealing with dangerous dogs by end of the financial year
Almost one year on from the ban on XL Bully dogs in the UK, the NPCC says its latest figures show the “huge burden” this has placed on policing, with kennel spaces reaching capacity and costs increasing by the day.
Between February and September 2024, police seized more than 4,586 suspected S1 dogs – specified banned breeds in the Dangerous Dogs Act – throughout England and Wales.
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Police Finances
Derbyshire's most senior police officer says increasing council tax to help bridge the force's £8.5m funding gap will not completely solve the problem.
In a report, external, Chief Constable Rachel Swann highlighted the force's funding gap of around £1.5m had increased to £8.5m since September.
Ms Swann has called on the county's police and crime commissioner Nicolle Ndiweni-Roberts to raise the portion of council tax to fund the force by the maximum of £14 a year for a Band D property.
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Police and Crime General
Never judge a book by its cover is a pretty good rubric, especially if you live on a desert island with a dozen washed-up volumes — you’ve got the time to leaf through each one and decide on its merits. As is Martin Luther King Jr’s dictum about judging people by the content of their character. In real life we take risks with the unknown. Most of the time we can afford the odd mistake. Paperbacks don’t break the bank, and can be put aside if the first few pages don’t please. When a friendship fails to bloom, nobody needs to return the call.
But for those in the business of assessing terror suspects the cost of a bad choice could be monumental; and those costs are usually paid by people who have no part in judging who is to be trusted and who is not.
Last summer, three little girls paid a price for someone else’s failure to discriminate between the merely dotty and the truly dangerous. Another 23 children and their teacher will bear the physical and emotional scars of that savage attack for the rest of their lives.
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Police and Crime General
The way Thames Valley Police has managed a scheme to let people know if their partner has a history of domestic violence "hasn't been acceptable", the area's police and crime commissioner has said.
The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme - known as Clare's Law – was launched in 2014 to provide information within 28 days that could protect someone from being a victim of attack.
Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber said some responses had taken too long but added the force was making changes to improve.
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Police and Crime General
Police officers have been told not to use the terms “black sheep” and “blacklisted” in case they offend someone.
A nine-page document that forms part of a 2023 diversity guide for staff at Bedfordshire Police and Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire constabularies says that the terms risk “portraying certain groups as inferior or superior to others”.
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Police and Crime General
Teenagers are getting away with knife crime in London because fewer police officers feel confident using stop and search in case a complaint derails their career.
The number of under-18s arrested for knife offences fell from 884 to 595 — a decrease of 33 per cent — between 2018 and 2023.
Metropolitan Police officers have detained young people for offences including possession of an article with a blade or point on school premises, threatening a person with a blade or sharply pointed article on further education premises, and possession of a flick knife or gravity knife.
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Police and Crime General
Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Scott, has published data which shows trust in the police has risen over the last year. In his annual Policing Survey, residents of Kent rated their confidence level in the force as 6.4/10, compared to last year’s 6/10.
Residents were asked to score their trust level on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being not at all and 10 being very much. 63% scored their trust as 6 or more, with only 25% rating it 4 or under. Again, this is an improvement on last year when 57% of respondents scored 6 or above and nearly 32% ranked their trust level as 4 or under.
Victims of crime still have less trust in the police, rating it 5/10, but that too is an improvement on last year’s 4.5/10.
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Justice
Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne, Victim Support and West Sussex County Council’s Domestic Abuse Team hosted a dedicated domestic abuse conference at The Amex in Brighton earlier this week. The theme for the conference was ‘Nobody Left Behind’.
The 300+ attendees included service providers, survivors and those wanting to learn more about how to provide support to domestic abuse victims. The large attendance made this the biggest event focusing on domestic abuse ever held in the county.
Sussex PCC Katy Bourne opened the conference, highlighting the sheer volume of providers working across the county to end domestic abuse and support those affected by it. PCC Bourne explained how her role works to support provisions already in place and to help fund new ones where needed.
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Technology
More than 20,000 people have signed up with police in the West Midlands to provide CCTV and doorbell footage for a force database.
The new technology allows people to add their cameras to a secure map of CCTV monitors, enabling officers to quickly identify ones that may have captured evidence at a crime scene nearby.
West Midlands Police set up the scheme in response to the fact thousands of offenders have been brought to justice every year through using such evidence
The force added 20,300 people had signed up to the scheme, set up in September 2024, and they had already helped solve major crimes in Coventry.
West Midlands Police are one of only two police forces in the UK who have started using such a system.
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Police and Crime General
A new report from the Youth Endowment Fund suggests that more than two thirds of teenagers support the use of stop and search by police across England and Wales, while those with direct contact with officers are more likely to believe the police do a good job – but responses vary with ethnicity and age, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
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Recruitment and Retention
Ninety-six per cent of police officers accused of domestic abuse are allowed to keep their jobs, a watchdog has revealed.
A report by Dame Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, said police forces were failing to root out domestic abusers, with only 4 per cent of officers who faced allegations dismissed from their jobs.
Dame Nicole said that the police, as the gateway for domestic abuse victims to the criminal justice system, should take a tougher approach to evidence of abuse by officers.
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Recruitment and Retention
The number of police officers in England and Wales has slipped to its lowest level in two years, figures show.
The headcount of officers employed by 43 forces stood at 148,886 at the end of September 2024.
This is down 883 from a peak of 149,769 at the end of March and the lowest total since the end of September 2022 (144,346), according to Home Office data published on Wednesday.
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Police Finances
Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster has welcomed news that licence fees levied on gun owners are set to be more than doubled.
Until now, police forces across the country have lost money every time a gun licence application is processed, because the fee charged doesn’t fully cover the costs to the police force of conducting background checks and issuing the licence.
But now the PCC says he is pleased the government has shaken up the price structure. In the West Midlands, the annual loss on the processing of licences was around £230,000 in 2023, which represents resources that could otherwise be invested into much needed frontline policing.
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Police Finances
Derbyshire’s PCC Nicolle Ndiweni-Roberts’ first budget and policing precept has received a full endorsement from the County’s Police and Crime Panel.
At a meeting held today (23 January), members of the 12-strong panel heard that this year’s budget has been developed specifically to strengthen local policing and deliver the Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan.
Nicolle Ndiweni-Roberts said: “Ahead of this budget I have consulted local residents at every stage, from the development of a Police and Crime Plan that prioritises their concerns, to a budget that will enable the Chief Constable to deliver against their priority areas.”
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Police and Crime General
In June 2022, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) placed the force under its enhanced monitoring process ‘Engage’ and highlighted concerns in a number of specific areas.
On Thursday (January 23), HMICFRS announced it is removing the MPS from Engage entirely as a result of improvements across the board,
Following two and half years of intensive work by the force, improvements have been recognised in areas including call handling, child exploitation, public protection, workforce planning, culture and counter-corruption.
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Prisons
The Prison Service is “beefing up” a cadre of officers dedicated to smashing gangs in prisons in the face of escalating drone use and drug-related violence, the prisons minister has said.
James Timpson said the work of the department’s serious organised crime unit is being expanded, and expressed concern that a minority of prison officers have been corrupted by “very manipulative people”.
He also agreed with the prison watchdog’s claim that drone use by gangs is “a national security threat” after weapons and drugs were flown into high security prisons.
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Police and Crime General
Terrorism laws will be overhauled and technology companies be pressured to remove a “tidal wave” of online violent content that is inspiring acts of murder, ministers have said amid growing anger over the Southport stabbings.
After it emerged Axel Rudakubana had accessed violent content in his bedroom before he stabbed three girls to death in July, Keir Starmer said it could not be right that “with just a few clicks, people can watch video after horrific video, videos that in some cases are never taken down”.
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Recruitment and Retention
Gloucestershire Police has announced it will be making staff redundant due to "financial challenges".
Temporary Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said as part of the savings the force expects to lose "a number of police staff posts".
Despite the redundancies, Ms Blyth has assured the public that police officer numbers - currently 1,345 - will not be cut.
"You can still expect to see officers out on patrol and should you be victim of a crime, we will still be there for you," she said.
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Police Finances
Wiltshire's police and crime commissioner has given more details about his plans to raise the police precept by the maximum amount allowed.
Philip Wilkinson is asking to increase the policing element of council tax bills to help plug a £11m gap in Wiltshire Police's budget.
It would mean a rise of £14 per year, or £1.16 extra per month, for band D households.
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Police and Crime General
More than 40 legal scholars have signed a letter calling for an independent inquiry into the Met’s policing of a pro-Palestine protest in London on Saturday, describing it as “a disproportionate, unwarranted and dangerous assault on the right to assembly and protest”.
The force said it had arrested 77 people at the demonstration, having banned protesters from gathering outside the BBC’s London headquarters, citing its proximity to a synagogue and the fact it was taking place on the Sabbath. The ban led to the protest being changed to a static rally, but the Met claimed people had broken through police lines in a coordinated effort to breach the conditions.
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Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner (PCC) is warning it risks becoming "impossible" to deliver good policing if government funding does not rise.
Wiltshire is the latest force to warn of spending cuts in the year ahead, which the organisations representing ordinary officers has called a "hammer blow" to morale.
The county's PCC says the force can carry on improving in 2025-26 despite this, but warned it would "become more difficult, perhaps impossible" the next year.
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Prisons
Britain’s prisons are at risk of becoming like Latin American jails where criminal gangs are in control, three former governors have warned.
They said that the control of many prisons had “been ceded to a hierarchy of organised crime”, given the amount of drugs and violence on wings.
Their letter warns Sir Keir Starmer to end the “handwringing and excuses” that have blamed the prisons crisis on the previous government, warning: “We are only a heartbeat away from a serious incident.”
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Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner (PCC) is warning it risks becoming "impossible" to deliver good policing if government funding does not rise.
Wiltshire is the latest force to warn of spending cuts in the year ahead, which the organisations representing ordinary officers has called a "hammer blow" to morale.
The county's PCC says the force can carry on improving in 2025-26 despite this, but warned it would "become more difficult, perhaps impossible" the next year.
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Justice
The Victims’ Code sets out in clear and simple language what victims can expect from the criminal justice system, including the level of support they are entitled to.
Research shows that while young adults are more likely to be victims of violent crime, too many are unaware of their rights – with just one in five victims aware of the Victims’ Code.
The new push launched today will bolster confidence in the criminal justice system and the level of support victims can expect to receive – underpinning the Government’s Plan for Change to create safer streets.
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Justice
New community sentences that involve mandatory drug or alcohol treatment under the supervision of a judge are often tougher than jail, the prisons minister has said.
Lord Timpson said non-custodial punishments overseen by problem-solving courts, which are being trialled in the UK, should not be seen as a soft option. For many offenders being forced to deal with their addiction was “the hardest thing” they had ever done.
Offenders referred to an Intensive Supervision Court meet regularly with the same judge who monitors their progress on drug or alcohol treatment programmes. They also have to submit to random drug tests and may be offered mental health support. They can be sent to jail immediately if they breach their conditions.
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Police Finances
The Safer Streets Fund goes to the county’s Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC), which has employed measures to prevent neighbourhood crime. Projects include the roll out of additional CCTV, street lighting, safety campaigns and educational programmes.
Since 2020, the Home Office has awarded police forces almost £160 million nationally through five rounds of the Safer Streets initiatives, with 413 projects funded across England and Wales.
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Police and Crime General
John Lewis has become the first retailer to use AI age checks for online knife sales.
The technology, called facial age estimation, uses AI to look at someone’s face to determine whether they are over or under 18, as it is illegal for children to buy knives.
It has enabled John Lewis to start selling kitchen knives online again for the first time since 2009. When a customer wants to buy a knife online, they give permission for an image of their face to be taken. The AI scans it and gives an approval within seconds if it deems they are over 18.
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Police and Crime General
The teenager who murdered three young girls at a dance class in Southport was referred three times to Prevent, the government’s scheme to stop terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned.
One of the referrals followed concerns about Axel Rudakubana’s potential interest in the killing of children in a school massacre, it is understood.
His behaviour, including his apparent interest in violence, was assessed by Prevent as potentially concerning. But he was deemed not to be motivated by a terrorist ideology or pose a terrorist danger and was therefore not considered suitable for the counter-radicalisation scheme.
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Police and Crime General
Yvette Cooper has announced a public inquiry into the murder of three girls by Axel Rudakubana at a dance class in Southport in July.
She said the inquiry would aim to get to the truth about what happened and what needed to change in wake of the “truly horrendous, barbaric and cowardly attack” by Rudakubana on the three girls at the Taylor Swift-themed class on July 29.
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Police and Crime General
Police chiefs are calling for a change in the law to lower the drink drive limit after road fatalities soared to a 13-year high.
The National Police Chiefs Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) want tougher laws to punish drivers who consume anything more than a small glass of beer.
Chief constables are also backing a zero-tolerance approach to intoxicated motorists, changing procedures to allow officers to issue a driving ban at the roadside the moment someone tests positive, rather than letting offenders continue driving for months pending a court case.
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Police and Crime General
Two former IOPC investigators told Channel 4 News that documents and evidence were mishandled, leadership was poor and that there was an instruction not to go after senior officers as part of Operation Linden.
Operation Linden was a wide-ranging and detailed series of investigations into how South Yorkshire Police responded to allegations of child sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. It was the second largest investigation in its history after Hillsborough.
It was set up after the Jay report concluded in August 2014 that failings in political and police leadership contributed to the sexual abuse of 1,400 girls in South Yorkshire.
Speaking out for the first time on the Channel 4 programme, Garry Harper, who spent seven years as an investigator with the IOPC, including working for two years as part of the major investigations team on Operation Linden said: “We’re just another chapter in the failure for the survivors. They haven’t received the service they should have received and the force hasn’t been held to account in the way that it should.”
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Police Finances
Dozens of British Transport Police (BTP) stations across Britain face possible closure, leaving fewer officers protecting the railway at a time when assaults on passengers have reached record levels.
BTP officials have imposed a hiring freeze and warned that some bases will have to close, signalling possible job losses after failing to secure enough funding to meet current commitments.
The move comes as assaults on passengers and members of the public on the mainline railway reached a record 9,542 in 2023-24, up 17% on the previous year, according to the latest statistics from the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road.
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Police Demand
The teenager beams at the camera in his school blazer and tie, his hair carefully gelled into neat little points, his face split in a wide, toothy grin.
Surrounding him are toddlers, pre-pubescent girls, boys on the cusp of manhood, young women on nights out, men on holiday and a handful of pensioners.
It might seem like a random sea of faces. But the people in this collage, on a wall at Cavey’s Cabin, a community centre in the seaside town of Redcar, North Yorkshire, have one thing in common — they were killed by a knife.
Chris Cave, whose photo sits at the centre, was 17 when he was stabbed four times with a 12in blade as he helped a friend protect his home from a gang of youths in Redcar in June 2003.
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Police Finances
English councils face a tripling in their audit fees this year, with some councils set to see their bills rise by as much as seven times. The Public Sector Audit Appointments (PSAA) has set an average increase of 230 per cent for 2023/24 compared with a year earlier. Tony Crawley, chief executive of the PSAA, said the body was “acutely aware” of councils’ financial pressures and the “unwelcome additional budgetary pressure” of audit costs. “Work on reforming accounting and auditing frameworks must reduce the volume of local audit work needed to make it more proportionate,” he said.
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Police and Crime General
Devon and Cornwall Police has said it has made strides in improving response times for emergency and non-emergency calls.
In 2024, 94.2% of 999 calls were answered within 10 seconds, a 5.8% increase from 2023, it said.
The force also said the average wait time for 101 calls in the second half of 2024 was three minutes and 43 seconds, nearly 27 minutes faster than the same period in 2023.
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Police and Crime General
Violent robberies and knifepoint thefts of smartphones have surged by 47 per cent since the Covid-19 pandemic and are fuelling a rise in knife crime nationwide, The Times has found.
Gang violence, a competitive drugs market and domestic abuse have contributed to at least 2,574 deaths by a knife or sharp instrument between January 2013 and December 2023, about 230 a year.
Deprivation, £1 billion of cuts to youth services since 2012, a boom in online knife sales and youth unemployment at a post-pandemic high are all factors in the misery knife crime inflicts on communities. Analysis of data from between 2013 and 2023 reveals the scale of fatal stabbings and knife possession across England and Wales.
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Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation unexpectedly dipped in December for the first time in three months as hotel prices fell and tobacco costs eased.
Prices rose 2.5% in the year to December, down from 2.6% the month before, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
Despite the rate of price rises remaining above the Bank of England's target, expectations of an interest rates cut next month have grown.
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Technology
The contract is for an initial term of seven years, expiring 31 December 2031, but includes provision for optional extension of two 12-month periods to 31 December 2033.
The Home Office has awarded a contract worth more than £1.3 billion to IBM to help build the long awaited Airwave replacement network after Airwave’s operator Motorola decided to drop out of the replacement project following an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which capped the price the company could charge forces for the network.
As the new User Services supplier, IBM will be responsible for leading the design, build and system integration of the ESN platform. Key to achieving this will be IBM’s delivery of IT infrastructure the Home Office says.
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Police and Crime General
A police and crime commissioner (PCC) has backed calls for a UK-wide child sex abuse inquiry.
The government resisted calls for a new national inquiry last week, arguing the findings from a previous report into child sexual abuse are still to be implemented.
Thames Valley Conservative PCC Matthew Barber said the absence of a new inquiry could lead to a "lack of public confidence".
Number 10 previously said "there will be a range of views" on the issue of a new inquiry, adding that the government would be "guided and led by the victims and survivors".
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Police and Crime General
The police inspectorate has raised concerns over a force "potentially leaving children at risk" because of its "inadequate" handling of child abuse investigations and missing children reports.
His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary Michelle Skeer graded Cleveland Police inadequate for both "responding to children at risk of harm" and "investigating child abuse, neglect and exploitation".
She said the force did not have enough trained officers to deal with such reports and highlighted evidence of "victim-blaming language".
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Technology
The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' (APCC) Addictions and Substance Misuse leads and their Roads Policing counterparts are jointly backing the British Medical Association's (BMA) call for a reduction in the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers.
The BMA recently produced a consensus statement representing the views of a range of organisations including medical professional bodies, alcohol and road safety charities and campaign groups, along with police and emergency services. The statement outlines why they are in favour of reducing the amount of alcohol drivers can consume, alongside evidence showing that even small amounts of alcohol can impair driving ability, significantly increasing the risk of accidents.
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Police and Crime General
The UK’s first team dedicated to investigating crimes committed by registered sex offenders, launched by Greater Manchester Police initially as a pilot project more than two years ago, has now hit a 90% solved outcome rate for investigations, and has become a permanent part of the force structure, as unit head DI Marc Baker told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.
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Police Finances
The period in which clear-up rates for the most serious crimes collapsed coincided with big cuts to police budgets, and the subsequent fall in police officer numbers of about 20,000.
The last Conservative government, responsible for the cuts after 2010 in the name of austerity, spent its time denying they would have any damaging effect on crime fighting in England and Wales. Then, in its final years, it started to reverse the cuts, and pretended “wokery” among law enforcement had diverted officers’ attention.
There are few left who would argue the effect of slashing police budgets was not damaging. The question that remains is how much those cuts can be blamed for the deterioration in service for victims.
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Police Demand
Victims are being “let down time and time again” by police, a minister has said, as almost every violent or sexual offence went unsolved in hundreds of crime hotspots last year.
Nearly 1.9m violent or sexual crimes in England and Wales were closed without a suspect being caught or charged in the year to June 2024 – about 89% of all offences given an outcome, official figures show.
Fewer than one in 10 cases were resolved in 611 neighbourhoods with the highest levels of these offences, according to a Guardian analysis, as growing numbers of victims withdraw from investigations after losing faith in securing justice.
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Police and Crime General
Drug addicts in one of Wales' most deprived areas are telling police they are struggling to buy illegal substances after an initiative to cut crime, a force has said.
Project Renew has been running in the western half of the centre of Rhyl, Denbighshire, since April, and North Wales Police said crime was down 14%.
It said it had dismantled several gangs and made it harder for addicts to get hold of drugs.
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Police Finances
A police force has said it is focusing on savings that can be found from its buildings and vehicles as it grapples with an £11m hole in its budget.
Draft plans from Wiltshire Police have been released as part of the 2025/26 budget and will be scrutinised at a meeting next week.
The force's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Phillip Wilkinson said he was "left with no choice" but to ask for the maximum increase in council tax, after the annual Home Office funding was announced last month.
The deficit after this increase would stand at £6.8m - more than £1m of which had already been accounted for by Wiltshire Police - but a gap of £5.2m still remains.
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Justice
Thousands of paedophiles and rapists have successfully applied to be removed from the sex offenders register since 2019, prompting calls for a comprehensive overhaul of the system.
Campaigners have described the findings, which show a 75 per cent success rate for applicants to be taken off the register, as alarming and claim the system is prioritising offenders over victims.
New figures obtained through freedom of information requests by The Independent show at least 1,998 sex offenders in England and Wales have had their applications approved by police forces since 2019. This equates to three-quarters of the 2,664 offenders who submitted applications to the 30 forces that provided data.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner left with no choice but to ask for the maximum precept increase which will see a Band D property pay an additional £1.16 a month (£14 per year)
Government settlement leaves funding gap of £11M with no precept increase and a gap of £6.8M with the maximum precept increase of 5.2%
Wiltshire Police had already planned for £1.2M of the funding gap and now faces further transformation of its services through rationalisation of police Estate and Fleet. Additional options look at the reduction in police staff via means such as natural attrition and not recruiting into non operational vacancies
[ more...]
Police Demand
The Government will do “whatever it takes” to clamp down on the use of ketamine, a Cabinet minister has told MPs.
Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell said many members see the “real, dangerous impact” of increased use of the drug, as ministers seek advice as to whether it should be reclassified as a class A drug.
In the year ending March 2023, an estimated 299,000 people aged 16 to 59 had reported use of the substance, which is currently controlled as class B, according to the Home Office.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
A March “mini-Budget” containing tax and spend measures has not been ruled out by the Government. Chancellor Rachel Reeves could be forced to follow up her October Budget with further spending cuts or tax rises if rising borrowing costs eliminate any fiscal headroom, it is reported.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
When thieves with a taste for champagne struck four times in a fortnight, swiping £800 worth from a delicatessen in an affluent north London neighbourhood, James Cartwright was ready to take action.
“In a bad week they will take more of this business than we do. And it’s not just alcohol — they’ll clear out £300 of ribeye steaks in one hit.
“Sometimes it feels like we’re working free and it’s pretty demoralising for the team,” said Cartwright, 39, who in 2020 co-founded The Grocery Post, a design-led convenience store stocking items with a cult following. The first shop, in Highgate, opened in November that year; a second one, in West Hampstead, followed in July 2023.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Scotland Yard has threatened to dock the pay of police staff who insist on working from home, it has emerged.
Civilian staff with operational duties have been told they need to be in the office a minimum of four days a week, while those in support roles have to be present on at least three out of five days.
The new policy came into force on Monday and those workers who refuse to comply have been warned they risk disciplinary action, including having their pay docked for the time they work from home.
More than 2,400 civilian police workers, including 999 call handlers and child protection officers, voted to take industrial action before Christmas after the Met announced the policy.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
“The temptation is always there not to rock the boat, always toe the party line. I had to go with my conscience and be the person that spoke up.”
The words of Lizzie Jones, a serving police officer who has spoken exclusively to Channel 4 News about misogyny in policing.
Chief Inspector Jones joined the Metropolitan Police in 2006 because she wanted to protect the public, particularly women and girls.
But right from the start, she was having to protect herself against a sexist police station culture.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A senior member of the national police staff association has resigned and alleged that the organisation has not been paying lawyers representing officers in misconduct cases.
Craig Hewitt, head of civil claims at the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW), wrote to board members telling them its financial issues were “worse than it has ever been”.
In a letter seen by The Times, Hewitt said that the PFEW had defaulted on regular monthly payments to its solicitors and that barristers working on behalf of the association were owed hundreds of thousands of pounds.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The grooming gangs scandal is back in the headlines after Elon Musk attacked Sir Keir Starmer and minister Jess Phillips for failing children.
The tech billionaire has accused Sir Keir of being "complicit" in the failure of authorities to protect victims and prosecute abusers while the PM was director of public prosecutions from 2008-2013.
Sir Keir has hit back at Musk, saying his record shows how he tackled the issue head-on.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Rachel Reeves is reportedly set to tighten Whitehall public service budgets further than expected in the Spending Review because of the challenging economic outlook. The Treasury is said to be braced for the possibility that on the Spring Statement, the Office for Budget Responsibility will judge the Chancellor is in breach of her fiscal rules because of higher borrowing costs.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The police and crime commissioner (PCC) for Surrey has warned that services "the public value the most" could be cut if council tax is not increased.
Lisa Townsend said Surrey Police was one of the fastest-improving forces in England when it came to charges, prosecutions and responding to offences.
But Ms Townsend said her force still had to find a way to save roughly £18m over the next four years.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
It comes after chief constables voted last month to fund a national team to drive delivery of the Police Race Action Plan for a further 12 months.
The plan is the biggest coordinated effort ever across every police force in England and Wales to improve trust and confidence in policing among black communities.
Every chief constable has signed up to support the plan and achieve its objectives, the first time there has been such a coordinated response across policing to making the vital improvements envisaged under the plan.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police are still unnecessarily arresting victims of crime, a former detective has claimed.
Maggie Oliver said although a review found cases of "unwise, unnecessary and unlawful" detention by Greater Manchester Police and called for urgent changes, the practice continued.
She suggested chief constable Stephen Watson's pledge to make more arrests might be behind officers' decisions to make arrests where they were not needed.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Inspector Charles Ehikioya is accused of sending texts that were ‘misogynistic, violent and otherwise inappropriate’.
The chairman of the Met’s Black Police Association swapped racist comments and sick jokes with a colleague in a WhatsApp group, a misconduct hearing has been told.
Inspector Charles Ehikioya, 58, has been accused of gross misconduct after allegedly sharing more than 7,000 messages with Carlo Francisco, a former PC, between 2017 and 2020.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The deputy police and crime commissioner for Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly has resigned after five months in the role.
Former Torbay Conservative councillor Mark Kingscote was hired by police and crime commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez in July to help her deal with leadership issues in the force.
The police and crime panel, which scrutinises her work, did not support Mr Kingscote's appointment and said at the time he did not have "sufficient experience" and would be "unable to work on behalf of all residents...[OR] meet the minimum requirements of the post", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, external.
Ms Hernandez wrote in a letter to panel members that Mr Kingscote had resigned "due to personal circumstances".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A police force has achieved the best crime-solving rate in England and Wales after refusing to ignore any incident reported.
Norfolk Constabulary had a charging rate for offences of 12 per cent in 2023/24. That puts it at the top of the police force league table, with a charging rate nearly three times that of the bottom-placed Metropolitan Police, Britain’s biggest force, where just 4.3 per cent of offences resulted in a charge.
Norfolk also brings criminals to justice in one in five crimes when out-of-court sanctions such as fines, cautions and community resolutions are included.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said those who cover up or fail to report child sexual abuse could face professional or criminal sanctions under a new offence to be introduced this year.
The proposal was one of 20 recommendations made by Professor Alexis Jay following her seven year inquiry into child sexual abuse, which concluded in 2022.
Cooper said the change would be added to the Crime and Policing Bill this spring.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The Sun has compiled and analysed the latest data and created a series of maps pinpointing where each area ranks.
Cleveland once again has the highest level of crimes recorded per 1,000 population making it the most dangerous place to live.
The numbers are calculated to show the level of crime proportionate to the amount of people who live there.
Cleveland Police in the north east recorded 129.3 crimes per 1,000 people, according to the latest ONS figures up to June 2024.
That compares to 105.8 recorded by the Metropolitan Police.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Farmers warn the rising value of farm equipment combined with policing shortages has created 'the perfect storm' for rural crime, with some in remote areas feeling abandoned to lawlessness.
They say their isolated homes offer rich pickings for thieves who travel from cities to target quad bikes, 4x4 vehicles, and expensive farm machinery alongside portable and easy to steal electronic items like tractor GPS systems.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Prof Alexis Jay, the former chair of a national inquiry into child sexual abuse, has called for the "full implementation" of reforms set out in her 2022 report, which warned of "endemic" abuse across society in England and Wales.
A campaign group chaired by Prof Jay, called Act on IICSA, said ministers must commit to a "clear timeline" to adopt the recommendations laid out by the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The government says it supports the changes.
The group warned against "politicising" sexual violence and pushed back against "misinformation".
Prof Jay also distanced herself from calls from the Conservatives and Reform UK for a new inquiry into grooming gangs.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Leicestershire Police's chief constable has announced he is to retire after 32 years in service.
Rob Nixon, who joined the force in 1993, took on the role on a temporary basis in March 2022 before his position was made permanent later that year.
Ahead of his retirement in March, he said leading the force had been "the honour of a lifetime".
"Over the years, I've had the privilege to work alongside some incredible people whose endless commitment to our communities has continually inspired me to do more," he said.
[ more...]
Justice
A prisoner who brought a legal challenge in April 2023 alleging he had been held in solitary confinement in England for more than two years has said he remains in isolation 20 months later because the judge has not given her decision in the case.
Kevan Thakrar, who is serving a life sentence for murder and attempted murder after being convicted on a joint enterprise basis in October 2008, brought a judicial review against the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) claiming unlawful solitary confinement.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Money confiscated from criminals is set to be used to fund laptops for the honorary police in Jersey.
The Treasury has approved the allocation of £86,400 for the volunteer officers' equipment from the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund, officials said.
In the Treasury and Exchequer Ministerial Decision Report, it said honorary police play "an integral role in community policing".
[ more...]
Prisons
Vulnerable children are being jailed many miles from their families at record levels, a Guardian investigation has found, prompting warnings that the government is breaking the law.
The proportion of young people being detained in young offender institutions (YOIs) more than 100 miles from their home has doubled over the last decade to 15% – the highest ?since its peak at the height of the Covid pandemic.
More than one in 10 of the young people in custody in England are being held at least 75 miles from their families, the highest since the Ministry of Justice began publishing the figures in April 2015.
[ more...]
Technology
The Metropolitan Police has rolled out its latest weapon in the fight against phone snatching.
Officers in the Waterloo & Southbank Neighbourhood Team will be provided with tagging sprays, which can be fired at phone thieves, marking them for potentially months after the crime.
Snatch thefts have increased by 150% in London over the last year, with one phone stolen in the capital every six minutes.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Labour must reverse years of political failure on extremism to stop it fuelling more disorder, violence and terrorism in Britain, leading figures have said.
Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terrorism policing, and Dame Sara Khan, previously the government’s counter-extremism tsar, warned that proposals unveiled last month would not be enough to address a toxic pool of hatred, conspiracy theories and “dangerous rhetoric” from high-profile figures including Elon Musk.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Stormzy is held up as a great inspiration to his fans. If you are not familiar with his work, Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr is a London-born, multi-award-winning rapper. His performances and political musings are considered important enough to draw comment from prime ministers. His public support for Jeremy Corbyn while on stage at the Glastonbury festival in 2017 was thought to be a crucial factor in the increase in youth support for Labour...
[ more...]
Fire
A major first-of-its-kind survey from the University of Central Lancashire has revealed one in four firefighters who responded to the fire in 2017 now suffer life-changing health conditions as scientists examine whether they are linked to exposure to toxic fumes from the inferno.
The disaster killed 72 people when a fire at the 23-story flat block was accelerated by highly flammable cladding.
More than 600 firefighters at the London Fire Brigade were involved in the first 20 hours of response, and 524 of them took part in this fresh research.
They reported 66 cases of digestive diseases, 64 respiratory diseases, 22 neurological diseases and 11 cancers.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Scrapping the recording of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) would undermine community policing and “ruin the data that’s required potentially to solve the case further down the line”, a former counterterrorism chief has said.
Neil Basu, who led the UK’s counterterrorism policing network, said that NCHIs helped officers fight antisocial behaviour by enabling them to “nip it in the bud before it escalates into crime”.
The recording of NHCIs is under scrutiny and Lord Herbert of South Downs, the chairman of the College of Policing, has called for the government to consider scrapping them in their present form. He feared that the recording of trivial incidents distracted officers and undermined public confidence.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to bolster community policing in order to reduce the amount of car thefts which are not solved, as the party claimed almost 25,000 such crimes went unsolved within three months.
The party said an analysis of Home Office figures shows on average 78.5% of all car thefts go unsolved, and argued this is partly because of a lack of police time and resources.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Devon and Cornwall's police and crime commissioner (PCC) is to review an idea of using tax windfalls from second homes to increase high-visibility patrols.
Some councils will be able to charge 200% council tax on second homes from April, but where extra money will be spent has become contentious, with South Hams councillors pushing for the cash to be spent on housing.
Pending discussions with Interim Chief Constable James Vaughan, Alison Hernandez said she planned to use some of the additional revenue to expand the Street Focus project.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Wiltshire Police has hit the national target for 999 answer rates for the first time.
Each month the force takes an average of 8,000 emergency calls. In November, it answered more than 90% of them in under 10 seconds, which is the national target.
This is a huge improvement from March, when it ranked as the worst force in the country.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A new report from the Centre for Social Justice is calling on the UK Government to rethink its drug policy and focus on an approach which integrates law enforcement, public health and community support to tackle a crisis of “unprecedented proportions”; but the report also warns that experiences in other countries suggest legalisation is not the answer, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for a full national public inquiry into the UK's "rape gangs scandal".
It comes after Home Office minister Jess Phillips rejected Oldham Council's request for a government-led inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation - saying the council should lead it instead.
Her decision, taken in October, was reported by GB News on Wednesday and then picked up by Elon Musk on his social media platform X, and several senior Tories.
[ more...]
Prisons
Prisons will need more money to combat the rapid rise in drones delivering drugs, the head of an influential Commons committee has said, as figures showed the number of aerial incursions predicted to have tripled in two years.
A freedom of information request by the Guardian found there were 1,296 drone incidents at prisons in England and Wales in the 10 months to the end of October 2024, a tenfold increase since 2020.
The Labour chair of the Commons justice committee, Andy Slaughter, said the figures should “set alarm bells ringing” about prison security.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Scotland Yard has paid £5,000 in an out-of-court settlement after allegedly unlawfully imprisoning a 17-year-old who was wrongly accused of being at a pro-Palestine protest where a building was spray-painted.
The case is said by civil liberties campaigners to be compelling evidence of a heavy-handed approach by the Met to the policing of demonstrations over the last year.
Xanthe Wells, now 20, who uses they/them pronouns, had first heard from the police in a voicemail message in February 2022 in which an officer said they wished to talk to them about CCTV footage in which Wells had been identified.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
More drivers have been arrested for drug driving offences than drink driving in December, according to Surrey Police.
The findings come as part of Operation Limit, a month-long campaign which sees the force randomly stopping cars at designated stop sites to breathalyse or drug swab where necessary.
In the first half of December, 1127 vehicle stops were made, 465 breath tests and 117 drug wipes used, and 53 arrests made, 32 of which were for drug driving.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A detective who led the investigation into the murder of schoolgirl Olivia Pratt-Korbel has been recognised in the New Year Honours list.
Mark Baker, a recently retired detective chief superintendent at Merseyside Police, receives the King's Police Medal while the force's former chief constable, Andy Cooke, is knighted.
Mr Baker, whose team's work resulted in drug dealer Thomas Cashman being jailed for life for shooting nine-year-old Olivia, said receiving the medal was the "greatest honour" of his career.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Federation said it supports a tightening of the current vetting regime, following the cases of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick, but wants the system backed by government regulation and an independent process.
“Instead, the College of Policing has decided to issue its own guidance,” said the PFEW. “This is opposed by both the PFEW and the Police Superintendents Association (PSA), which together represent the bulk of frontline officers across the country.”
It is the PFEW’s view that the rules being introduced by the College of Policing are “badly drawn up, lack an independent appeals process, and could lead to officers having their vetting withdrawn on receiving adverse information without officers knowing what that information is”.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police forces should be allowed to cut officer numbers and spend more money on technology to boost crime fighting, a police chief has said.
Chief constable Paul Sanford, who leads for police chiefs on finances, said there was an obsession with officer numbers, even though it would often be more effective to have fewer officers supported by better technology.
Sanford, who is the chief constable of Norfolk constabulary, said forces cannot afford new technology that could help them solve crimes more quickly and serve victims better.
[ more...]
Prisons
Nearly a third of people leaving prison are being employed within six months of leaving custody, government statistics show.
As of this year, 31.1% of offenders were getting jobs, compared to 26% the year before.
The figure has more than doubled since the COVID pandemic when data first started being collected.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The number of firearms seized by West Midlands Police rose by 40% in 2024, compared to the previous year.
Among the 210 guns was a Madsen machine gun, which was found hidden behind a bath panel, along with tools to convert blank-firing guns into working weapons.
Police officers also made 45 arrests in connections with the seizures.
[ more...]
Justice
Officials are examining whether to change the way domestic violence crimes are recorded after a campaign by an MP who says the lack of a specific offence allows abusers to be freed early from jail.
Josh Babarinde, the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesperson, said a change would also help highlight the prevalence of domestic violence, which he said was still too often hidden.
Babarinde, the MP for Eastbourne, who was first elected in July, told the Guardian that his mother was subjected to domestic violence by a man when he was growing up, something that teachers and friends were ignorant about.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Wiltshire Police has hit the national target for 999 answer rates for the first time.
Each month the force takes an average of 8,000 emergency calls. In November, it answered more than 90% of them in under 10 seconds, which is the national target.
This is a huge improvement from March, when it ranked as the worst force in the country.
[ more...]
Justice
Naming new legislation after victims risks skewing sentencing and creates unbalanced hierarchies of offences, leading barristers have warned.
Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform charity, said grieving families campaigned for so-called apostrophe laws in an attempt to find “some sort of resolution”.
In the past two decades at least 20 of such laws have been passed, with at least 14 created in the past five years alone, including Tony’s Law, Jade’s Law and Martyn’s Law.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Listening to the public is the key to rebuilding trust in policing, Cheshire's Police and Crime Commissioner has said.
Labour's Dan Price, who was elected in May, is setting up citizens' assemblies as part of his plans to engage with people.
He has unveiled his four-year police and crime plan, external, which sets out a PCC's priorities for the force. As well as listening to residents' views, the plan also focuses on reducing crime and modernising.
[ more...]
Police Demand
It's been more than 40 years since Neighbourhood Watch was first launched in the UK, turning residents' eyes and ears into a valuable crimefighting resource.
In Baildon, West Yorkshire, around a quarter of the population are registered members of their local scheme, helping to keep a watchful eye over the town.
Since a boom in membership six years ago, the scheme has been credited with helping slash crime in the community by more than a third.
As a result it has now been recognised by Neighbourhood Watch as one of Yorkshire's most effective schemes.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The share of council tax Warwickshire Police receives could rise by £14 a year for the average household to maintain current service levels, the police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
Philip Seccombe said the government settlement for Warwickshire Police next year indicated a potential funding increase of 5.9%, or £8.3m.
However, he said it was below the national average and £3.2m of the sum depended on an increase in the police share of council tax.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
While the recruitment of minors into organised crime and terrorism is not new, a recent Europol briefing warns that youngsters aged 13-17 are now involved as perpetrators in more than 70% of all European criminal markets, with gangs using increasingly targeted messaging on social media platforms and “gamified” challenges and missions for minors to blur the lines between friendship and exploitation, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Cosmetics and perfumes by luxury fashion houses and cult brands are fail-safe presents and give retailers a festive sales boost each year.
Therefore, before Christmas, and as shops prepared to sell millions of bottles of expensive fragrances and even more beauty products in the January sales, organised crime gangs targeted haulage drivers transporting high-value cosmetics along the UK’s motorway network.
Alcohol, mobile phones, electrical items and clothing were among the desirable products snatched from lorries in transit or parked at service stations.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A police officer earned £18,344 on top of their salary due to the amount of overtime they worked, figures reveal.
It came as Essex Police forked out £5.7m on paying officers for overtime in the year to November.
Officers have been left "broken" as a result of being "forced" into working extra shifts, the county's police federation warned.
Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington praised the dedication of his officers and insisted: "Crime isn't nine-to-five."
[ more...]
Prisons
Britain should move thousands of inmates into low-security open prisons to tackle the overcrowding crisis and reduce reoffending, a senior government adviser has said.
David Gauke, the Tory former justice secretary, urged ministers to copy Spain, where a much greater proportion of convicted criminals are free to work and study outside prison walls during the day.
In an interview with The Times, he said the policy saved money and meant that inmates were better prepared for release and therefore less likely to reoffend.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Throughout 2024, UK government and law enforcement rhetoric around technology largely focused on the role of automation in reducing cost while boosting efficiency and productivity. Since the ascent of the new Labour government in July, there has also been a renewed focus on law and order given its manifesto commitment to “take back our streets”.
This has translated to expanding the role of various technologies throughout policing, particularly facial-recognition and cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) tools. However, many of these deployments – as with previous years – are plagued by data protection issues and ethical concerns.
Computer Weekly’s coverage also considered how the government’s new data reforms could further reduce transparency and oversight around police technology, and challenged the assumption that people in the UK are policed by consent, given how little say they have over the technologies being deployed with taxpayer money in public spaces.
[ more...]
Police Finances
A government funding announcement for Lincolnshire Police has been described as "very disappointing" by the county's police and crime commissioner.
The force has been allocated £173.2m for 2025, an increase of £8.9m on this year.
Just over half of the increase will come from Home Office grants but £4.1m will come from rises in council tax bills which are expected to go up by an average £14.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Council tax will rise by up to £330 million next year to fund policing across England and Wales, as chief constables warned of “inevitable cuts” to officer numbers due to a funding shortfall.
Dame Diana Johnson, the policing minister, set out a 3.5 per cent real-terms increase in funding for police forces for 2025-26 — but a third of the £987 million package will have to come from an increase in council tax.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Proposed government police funding "puts pressure" on a plan to increase officer numbers, a police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
The Home Office announced on Tuesday that it would pay a grant of £345.5m to Thames Valley Police (TVP) in 2025/26, an increase of £20.1m on 2024/25.
But Matthew Barber said the money would be insufficient to "relieve the pressure" on the force's budget, and would lead to "some difficult decisions".
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK inflation rate has gone up for the second month in a row, rising at the fastest rate since March.
The UK inflation rate rose to 2.6% in the year to November, according to official figures.
Fuel and clothing were among the main drivers behind the rise. Increasing ticket prices for gigs and plays were also a factor.
The Bank of England raises interest rates to try to keep inflation at its target of 2%. Its next rates decision is on Thursday, but economists expect rates to be held at 4.75%.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The report will be published on March 26 and will be followed by a statement to parliament from the chancellor, but not a full Budget.
Under the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011 the OBR is required to produce two forecasts each financial year.
Treasury officials previously said Reeves is committed to one major fiscal event a year, ending the recent practice of preparing two annual Budgets or a Budget alongside a Spring or Autumn Statement.
Last month the chancellor also told the CBI business conference she was “not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes”.
[ more...]
Justice
"Removing the right to trial by jury" and "intermediate courts" may be the only way to clear the crown court backlog in England and Wales, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate has said.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces in England and Wales could get up to £17.4bn in funding in 2025-26, an increase of £986.9m, or 3.5%, on the previous year. However, around a third of the rise will be dependent on police and crime commissioners adding £14 to the council tax of an average band D property.
Andy Cooke, chief inspector of constabulary, said the current police funding formula was "an anachronism". He added that one-year funding settlements made it difficult for police forces to plan ahead.
Setting out further details of the funding plans, the minister said that £230.3m of the additional funding for forces would cover recent pay rises and compensate the police for higher employer taxes, announced in the Budget.
The police funding settlement also includes £100m to begin recruiting the 13,000 additional neighbourhood police the Labour government promised to deliver.
The total amount going to policing - including the money for local forces - will be £19.5bn, a real terms increase of 3% on the previous year.
[ more...]
Police Finances
A scandal-hit police force has been forced to ask the Government for emergency funding to pay three chief constable salaries at the same time.
Devon and Cornwall Police made the request to the Home Office last month after a second chief constable was suspended in as many years.
The force is still reeling from the allegations levelled against Chief Constable Will Kerr, who was suspended in July 2023 after an investigation was opened into “serious allegations of sexual offences” in Northern Ireland, which he denies.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Essex Police has made more than £35m by selling off its buildings since 2016 and plans to sell more, despite calls from residents for more local policing.
Six sites have been sold in the past 18 months and the force hopes to offload five more by 2028.
Barbara Hollingum from Ongar, where the police station was sold earlier this month, told the BBC: "It would be nice to see some sort of presence here."
Chief constable Ben-Julian Harrington said many of the buildings were Edwardian and no longer fit for purpose.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Angela Rayner has said she wants every region of England to get a mayor, as she outlined plans for a major redesign of local government.
The deputy prime minister told the BBC giving regional mayors more powers over housing, transport, education and employment would help drive economic growth.
Under the proposals, the government also wants to merge areas where there are currently two tiers of local authority - smaller district and larger county councils - in a bid to streamline services.
[ more...]
Justice
Lawyers are refusing to represent people charged with certain crimes amid a crisis over solicitors’ pay, with one burglary suspect turned away by 12 legal firms, the Law Society president has said.
Richard Atkinson, who leads the organisation representing more than 200,000 solicitors in England and Wales, said its members lost money if they took such cases and warned that other crimes, including lower level sexual offences, also risked becoming uneconomic for practitioners.
The Law Society is in a dispute with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) over its refusal to implement a recommended minimum 15% increase in criminal legal aid, which has resulted in the organisation advising its members to consider whether it is still worthwhile doing such work.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A scandal-hit police force has been forced to ask the Government for emergency funding to pay three chief constable salaries at the same time.
Devon and Cornwall Police made the request to the Home Office last month after a second chief constable was suspended in as many years.
The force is still reeling from the allegations levelled against Chief Constable Will Kerr, who was suspended in July 2023 after an investigation was opened into “serious allegations of sexual offences” in Northern Ireland, which he denies.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Guernsey Police is starting training ahead of changes to the island's laws relating to domestic violence.
The Domestic Abuse Law (DAL) was approved by the States of Guernsey in the autumn and is expected to come into force in early 2025 after it is given Royal Assent, the force said.
In readiness, it said senior officers were being trained by the Crown's law officers on the new offences, powers and procedures needed to enforce the new legislation.
The DAL will give new powers to the police to protect victims of domestic abuse by bringing in additional offences around domestic abuse and new ones for child abuse and the publication of images.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Scotland Yard is to axe 370 specialist police officers based in schools despite record levels of teenage knife crime.
The Metropolitan Police is to transfer the officers into neighbourhood policing teams rather than having them in schools where they are currently responsible for protecting children from young criminals and preventing them from turning to crime.
The move comes amid warnings that thousands of officers nationwide may be cut after this week’s police funding announcement by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary.
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Police Demand
Police chiefs have called for a complete overhaul of the recording of non-crime hate incidents, warning that it has become an “impediment” to officers doing their job.
The chairman of the College of Policing, Lord Herbert of South Downs, said the government should consider scrapping the practice in its present form, making him the most senior policing figure to criticise how hate incidents are logged.
The college is in consultation with Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, about rewriting the guidance governing the recording of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) in response to inconsistency and controversy over its misuse.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy shrank for the second month in a row in October after official figures showed a 0.1 per cent drop. The economy had been expected to return to growth following a fall during September. However, the Office for National Statistics said that activity had stalled or declined, with pubs, restaurants and retail among the sectors reporting "weak months".
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Recruitment and Retention
Metropolitan Police staff have voted to go on strike over office working.
A Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) ballot showed overwhelming support for industrial action, with 85% of members who voted saying yes to taking strike action and 91% voting for action short of a strike.
The PCS said it showed the depth of feeling after managers reversed an existing agreement on blended working that allowed staff to work from home part of the week.
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Police and Crime General
The City of London Police has appointed Nik Adams as its Assistant Commissioner following an open recruitment process.
Announcing the news on LinkedIn, the force said AC Adams—who was appointed Temporary AC in October 2023—will now continue to lead all national force activity on fraud and cyber crime.
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Police Demand
A scheme which gives police powers to stop and search previous offenders without suspicion has been shrouded in secrecy, charities have warned.
Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) were introduced by the Conservative government in a two-year pilot in April 2023 in a bid to crack down on knife crime.
Anyone convicted of carrying a knife or who “ought to have known” someone else was carrying a knife, whether or not the weapon was actually used, can be issued with an SVRO by the courts.
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Police Demand
We’re out on the street for a matter of seconds before PCs David Parker and Jake Dean shoot off on their bikes through the pre-Christmas traffic. They are in pursuit of an e-scooter being ridden on the pavement near London’s Liverpool Street Station.
It’s illegal to use privately-owned e-scooters in public in the UK. The officers seize it and take it to "the cage" - a lock-up behind nearby Bishopsgate police station - from where it will be taken away and crushed.
Then, the officers are straight onto their next target - a powerful e-bike that can reach speeds far higher than the 15.5 mph allowed by law.
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Police Finances
“Gun control is dead,” reads one message on Deterrence Dispensed, an online forum dedicated to 3D-printed firearms. “I’ve never been more proud of this community”, says another.
Ever since it was revealed that Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man charged with the murder of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson, had been arrested carrying a homemade weapon, the disturbing website has been full of posts debating – and, in some cases, celebrating – the news.
“This could very well help the 2a [Second Amendment] community. It’ll show the world that 3D printing is actually viable,” one amateur gunsmith opined. Another said they hoped it would encourage “more people to take their defence into their own hands”, while a different gun maker stated: “The whole point is that their laws don’t matter. Dude hit one of the richest people in the world in a place with some of the strictest gun control in the world.”
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Prisons
Prisons could run out of room despite the government's pledge to open 14,000 new prison spaces, the Justice Secretary has warned.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Shabana Mahmood said that even with the planned expansion "we are still going to run out of prison places".
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will set out details of its 10-year plan to tackle the overcrowding crisis in prisons in England and Wales on Wednesday, which will include building four new prisons by 2031.
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Police Demand
A police unit launched to crack down on the surge in shoplifting has arrested 93 members of 28 organised crime gangs behind more than £4m worth of thefts.
The national team has also identified 228 previously unknown offenders and 70 vehicles involved in retail crime in the seven months since it was launched, according to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC).
Police say it's the first time officers have mapped the gangs targeting shops and supermarkets around the country to see where they're operating.
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Prisons
Specialist courts focused on breaking the addictions of prolific offenders are “efficient” and “a good idea”, the head of the government’s sentencing review has said as he suggested they could be rolled out across England and Wales.
In an interview with the Guardian, David Gauke praised “very encouraging” pilots of intensive supervision courts which steer recidivists to engage repeatedly with judges, probation officers and drug counsellors.
His words are the first major indication of Gauke’s direction as he draws up plans to rip up the current norm of sending criminals to prison without addressing the causes behind the crimes. His proposals will be presented to ministers in the spring.
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Police Demand
Young drivers use mobile phones behind the wheel illegally because they do not believe police will catch them, research by the RAC has found.
More than half of young drivers admitted to illegal phone use while behind the wheel, a survey has indicated.
Around 55 per cent of motorists aged under 25 said they have made and received voice calls without hands-free technology while driving, according to the poll commissioned by the RAC.
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Police Finances
A chief constable says he may be forced to cut 200 officers and staff unless his force receives extra funding.
Ben-Julian Harrington from Essex Police said his force was facing a £34m shortfall in the next financial year, the vast majority made up of staffing costs.
"To put it bluntly, the books don't balance," Mr Harrington said.
The Home Office said the police funding settlement would provide Essex Police with £406.2m over the next year.
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Police and Crime General
Four chief constables impacted by July and August’s disorder were questioned on Tuesday afternoon as part of the first inquiry into the riots.
Police forces across the UK who faced this summer’s disorder must ask themselves three questions around intelligence sharing to ensure the violence experienced can be managed more effectively: Was it effective enough? Was it quick enough? And how can they secure better resources?
That’s the view of Chief Constable Chris Noble, from Staffordshire Police, who outlined the “key area for policing to reflect on” at the first Home Affairs Committee into the rioting.
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Police and Crime General
Between April and September 2024 there were 20,271 reported crimes of domestic abuse, compared with 18,243 during the same period last year, an increase of 2,028 crimes according to Police Scotland’s 2024/25 Quarter 2 Performance Report.
The figures have been published as the force launches its latest campaign to help tackle domestic abuse.
Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson, executive lead for major crime, public protection and local crime, explained: “As our latest data shows domestic abuse continues to be a problem within our society.
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Police and Crime General
The chief constable of Essex Police has defended the way his officers handled the investigation into Allison Pearson, the Telegraph journalist, insisting they had behaved “proportionately, fairly and very, very ethically”.
BJ Harrington said the force had received an allegation of crime and had followed all reasonable lines of inquiry before concluding that no offence had been committed.
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Recruitment and Retention
Metropolitan Police workers, including 999 call handlers and child protection officers, have voted to go on strike for the right to spend more time working from home.
Just over 50 per cent of the Met’s 2,400 Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) members backed industrial action after being told they would need to return to the office in the new year.
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Police Finances
Two police chiefs have warned that they face having to cut the number of officers in their forces if shortfalls in their budgets are not addressed.
The Metropolitan Police faces a £450 million budget shortfall next year meaning that 2,300 officers and 400 staff could have to be cut, while Essex Police faces a £34 million shortfall which could mean a reduction of 200 officers.
“My budget gap for next year is about £34 million.”
He said the “vast majority of that comes from pay progression, it comes from increased salary costs of the officers and the staff”.
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Police and Crime General
A police chief has branded claims of two-tier policing "nonsense" as he insisted his officers had been "entirely fair" in the way they responded to the summer riots.
Cleveland Police's chief constable Mark Webster told MPs "people don't want to listen to the facts" when asked about the debate, which erupted amid accusations some were getting special treatment from police because of their background.
Violent disorder swept parts of England in July and August in the wake of the Southport stabbings, fuelled by social media misinformation.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police officer numbers will need to be cut and council tax raised to prevent funding shortfalls, police chiefs have warned.
Chief constables and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) have written to ministers to warn that funding announcements for the next year will put them in an “uncomfortable position”.
They said they faced a reduction in headcount that could result in an increase in council tax because funds announced by Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, will not be enough to pay for pay rises and other unavoidable costs.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The government has reiterated its commitment to provide 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers in England and Wales by 2029.
But only 3,000 of these will be newly recruited. And our analysis finds that, because of population growth, the number of police officers per head of the population will actually fall.
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Recruitment and Retention
Police have lost the trust of the public because of their “unacceptable” failure to get the basics right, says their watchdog.
Andy Cooke, Chief HM Inspector of Constabulary, said it was increasingly normal for the public to feel the police did not listen to them, did not take them seriously and would not to get to grips with burglary, shoplifting or anti-social behaviour in their communities.
“This is unacceptable and cannot continue,” said Mr Cooke in an article for The Telegraph website.
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Police Finances
Funding for frontline victim-support services is being cut by 4.2% in 2025, which organisations say will be "devastating" when combined with National Insurance rises.
The cut follows government promises of stronger protections for victims of crimes such as stalking and anti-social behaviour.
The government now says the justice system is under "immense pressure" but it will protect support for victims of sexual violence or domestic abuse.
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Technology
Images of arrested people who were innocent of any crimes are still being stored in a police database that may be used for facial recognition purposes, an official report has warned.
In 2012, the high court ruled that keeping the images of people who faced no action or who were charged and then acquitted was unlawful.
Despite the ruling, custody images of innocent people are still on the Police national database, which is available to all UK police forces and selected law enforcement agencies. The images can be used for facial recognition checks of potential suspects.
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Police and Crime General
The police led National Business Crime Centre is urging retailers to make full use of the crime prevention and training resources available free on their website to help support shop workers during the busy festive season.
With the most recent crime survey from the BRC showing incidents of abuse and violence towards shopworkers have risen to 1,300 a day, the lead up to Christmas can be extremely challenging for those working in retail.
The NBCC has designed a series of training videos for those working in the retail sector to help them deal with difficult situations and customers and to provide practical steps they can take to stay safe and de-escalate a potential flash point.
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Police and Crime General
A mock "county lines alleyway" has been created to help young people learn to keep themselves safe.
The alley is used for the pretend distribution of "suspicious packages", with an operation led by a boy, who is initially charming but wants to trap teenagers into becoming couriers for ruthless drugs gangs.
It is among real-life scenarios at the educational facility SkillZone in Gloucester and is the first of its kind in the South West, said the county's Police and Crime Commissioner, Chris Nelson.
He said was important to "educate the young and vulnerable, to keep them safe from the influence of these evil gangs".
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Police and Crime General
Knife crime and serious violence, by its very nature, too often only comes to public attention when lives have been lost and communities are left shattered. This has been especially true over the past few years in Avon and Somerset, as families and communities have mourned the loss of young lives like 16-year-old Mikey Roynon, 16-year-old Max Dixon, 15-year-old Mason Rist, 16-year-old Darrian Williams and 16-year-old Charley Bates.
These young boys had their whole lives ahead of them, senselessly taken by other children and young people who carried knives. In the wake of these tragedies, a vital question echoes across communities: Why are children carrying knives and engaging in violence?
The answer is complex, rooted in social and environmental issues like poverty, systemic inequality, childhood trauma and child exploitation. Research shows that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as exposure to violence, can disrupt brain development which children may manage by displaying fight, flight, freeze, flop and friend responses which are survival-driven behaviours. Many of these young people are displaying trauma symptoms, not engaging in mindless aggression. They are often driven by fear and a need for safety or belonging.
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Police Demand
The national crackdown saw 557 weapons seized, alongside four XL bullies, as well as £1.98 million in cash across the country during the seven-day long ‘intensification week’.
National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for County Lines, Commander Paul Brogden, said: “Policing continues to disrupt and dismantle County Lines networks across England and Wales.
“The latest intensification week figures shows policing continuing to make inroads into these criminal networks. During the latest intensification week, we closed 261 County Lines and targeted the drug dealers who destroy lives and communities, resulting in over 1,660 criminals arrested during the week.
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Justice
The package, set out by Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has a strong focus on victims of rape and serious sexual offences to recognise the devastating impact these crimes can have on victims.
All adult victims of rape and serious offences are now being offered a pre-trial meeting with the CPS ahead of trial, as well as access to a dedicated victim liaison officers (VLOs) as a single point of contact to answer any questions they have. To date more 40 VLOs have been recruited and over 550 staff who will be meeting victims have received training.
In addition, the CPS says it will be working closely with the police and independent sexual violence advisers (ISVAs), to ensure the right support is in place for victims.
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Police Finances
Cuts to victim support funding could "seriously harm" charities which support people affected by crime, warned the Kent police and crime commissioner (PCC).
Matthew Scott said the government's 4.2% reduction in funding was a "poor decision" that could have a "devastating impact on local charities".
Katie Kempen chief executive of Victim Support, which is the largest organisation affected, said the funding shortfall means it will have to cut core services.
The Home Office said it was "determined to ensure the police have the resources they need".
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Police Finances
Scotland Yard’s famous Flying Squad faces being cut by a fifth and losing its guns amid a funding crisis.
Metropolitan Police staff were told in an internal post on Tuesday to prepare for reductions of up to 2,300 officers out of a force of 34,000 and of 400 civilian staff because of a potential £450 million budget shortfall.
In a message, Matt Ward, the deputy assistant commissioner, told specialist crime units including the Flying Squad that the Met’s ability to tackle serious violence and organised crime would be “scaled back”.
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Police and Crime General
Women in Norwich have cautiously welcomed a new police initiative aimed at making people feel safer at night time.
Last week, Norfolk Police launched Project Vigilant, which it said was aimed at detecting and disrupting sexual violence aimed at women and girls.
The force said undercover and uniformed officers had been trained to spot suspicious patterns of behaviour, such as catcalling.
"I’m pleased that there is positive action being taken," said Natasha Harpley, who is the Labour deputy leader of Broadland District Council.
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Technology
A new partnership is aiming to drive innovation in national police operations through advanced digitalisation.
The collaboration between Informed Solutions and the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC) will focus on digitally transforming national-scale, cross-force resource planning and coordination through the application of advanced data analytics and AI.
The extended three-year partnership will see Informed Solutions drive the next phase of data-driven transformation of the UK’s Mercury platform, a crucial cloud-based capability that supports NPoCC in managing police resources across 43 Home Office forces, Police Scotland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the Ministry of Defence Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary and other agencies. Mercury enables the coordination of cross-force mutual aid, national emergency responses, and large-scale public events, ensuring effective policing and public safety.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Scotland Yard’s famous Flying Squad faces being cut by a fifth and losing its guns amid a funding crisis.
Metropolitan Police staff were told in an internal post on Tuesday to prepare for reductions of up to 2,300 officers out of a force of 34,000 and of 400 civilian staff because of a potential £450 million budget shortfall.
In a message, Matt Ward, the deputy assistant commissioner, told specialist crime units including the Flying Squad that the Met’s ability to tackle serious violence and organised crime would be “scaled back”.
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Justice
Are you free on 9 March 2026?
You might be a traumatised victim of crime, you may be the suspect accused of wrongdoing, either way you'll be waiting for the next 460 days… and probably beyond.
That's exactly what we have just seen inside Leicester Crown Court. Not just once, but case after case shunted into 2026.
The judge in court four isn't doing it by choice but necessity.
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Prisons
The number of people sent to prison is to be reduced after a damning report laid bare the extent of overcrowding.
Changes to sentencing will end short custodial terms and ensure more criminals are punished in the community through house arrest and greater use of technology such as electronic tagging to restrict their movements.
Ministers have been prompted to make changes after the spending watchdog found that prison expansion plans would fall far short. The government expects the plans to free up 6,000 prison places by 2027.
However, a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) published on Wednesday said there would be a shortage of 12,400 prison places by the end of 2027 as demand outstripped supply.
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Prisons
Boris Johnson’s plan to provide 20,000 new prison places by 2026 is due to be completed five years late and billions over budget, a “scathing” assessment by Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office said current plans for prison capacity were “insufficient to meet future demand” amid a projected shortage of 12,400 places by the end of 2027, with costs expected to be at least £4bn higher than initially estimated.
HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has so far created a third – 6,518 – of the places in England and Wales it committed in 2021 to deliver by the mid-2020s.
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Police and Crime General
A police officer has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving over a crash in which a moped rider was killed.
Metropolitan Police Constable Ian Brotherton, 32, will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, also accused of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving.
He has been charged over the death of 26-year-old Cristopher De Carvalho Guedes, whose moped was hit by a police car on an emergency call in Southbury Road, Enfield, north London, on October 12 last year.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Sir Keir Starmer plans to recruit 13,000 police officers as part of a £360 million initiative to restore neighbourhood policing by the next election, The Times reports. The pledge will be part of a new set of “tangible” goals that he will promise to deliver by the next election, expected in 2029.
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Police Finances
A chief constable has warned of a reduction in officer numbers and staffing because his force's funding position had become "untenable".
Lincolnshire Police's Paul Gibson and the county's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Marc Jones said they had jointly written to the Home Office, College of Policing and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) for help as the force grapples with a £57m deficit over the next four years.
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Police and Crime General
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland's deputy police and crime commissioner is stepping down from the role.
Rani Mahal was first appointed in 2022 and agreed to continue in the position following Conservative Rupert Matthews' re-election as police and crime commissioner (PCC) in May.
Mahal confirmed she was leaving the role during a meeting of the Police and Crime Panel, which scrutinises the PCC's work, on Monday.
[ more...]
Police Finances
A plan to switch off street lights during the night risks damaging public safety and confidence, a police boss has warned.
West Berkshire Council believes it would save £50,000 a year by turning lights off between midnight and 05:00 in residential areas.
But Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber has written to council leader Jeff Brooks, external to express worries about the potential impact on women and vulnerable people's safety.
Mr Brooks said the authority needed to make “increasingly difficult decisions” because of higher costs and plans to save £1.2m in 2025/26.
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Police and Crime General
A majority of towns that saw rioting last summer have a “torn social fabric” and have been bearing the brunt of economic deprivation, according to a new report.
The report was published by the charitable trust Power to Change, using a “social fabric index” produced by the Onward thinktank which looks at the changing nature of community in different parts of the UK.
It found that 23 of the 27 places that experienced disorder last summer have a social fabric score that was far below the median.
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Police and Crime General
The UK is underestimating the severity of the online threat it faces from hostile states and criminal gangs, the country’s cybersecurity chief will warn.
Richard Horne, the head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, will cite a trebling of “severe” incidents amid Russian “aggression and recklessness” and China’s “highly sophisticated” digital operations.
In his first major speech as the agency’s chief, Horne will say on Tuesday that hostile activity in UK cyberspace has increased in “frequency, sophistication and intensity” from enemies who want to cause maximum disruption and destruction.
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Police Finances
Sir Keir Starmer will commit to putting 13,000 police officers on the streets by the next election as part of his plan for change but faces criticism from Labour MPs for not committing to a bolder crime-fighting pledge.
He will announce the first tranche of a £360 million fund to start recruiting officers as part of a speech on Thursday in which he will set out a series of targets for his government to hit by the next election.
However, The Times has been told that the Home Office is still in talks with the Treasury over the specific funding commitments towards the pledge, which will determine when the full 13,000 neighbourhood police officers are in place.
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Fire
Dangerous cladding will be fixed on buildings in England under new remediation plans, the Government has pledged. Under the scheme, buildings higher than 18 metres with dangerous cladding covered by government-funded schemes will be fixed by the end of 2029, and by the same date unsafe cladding in buildings over 11 metres should either be fixed or have a date for completion, ministers have said.
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Police Finances
A chief constable has warned of a reduction in officer numbers and staffing because his force's funding position had become "untenable".
Lincolnshire Police's Paul Gibson and the county's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Marc Jones said they had jointly written to the Home Office, the College of Policing and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) for help as the force grapples with a £57m deficit over the next four years.
An HMICFRS spokesperson said: "We can confirm that we received this letter.
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Police Demand
Over 1,700 arrests were also made during Operation Sceptre as police forces across England and Wales worked with local partners and organisations in a range of tactics to tackle knife crime.
Operation Sceptre is a week of action that runs twice a year.
In the latest operation, which ran from November 10 to 17, 9,376 knives were recovered in total. Some of these were from weapons’ sweeps undertaken to look for knives which are often concealed or discarded in public areas, others from knife bins and a number from arrests and warrants.
In addition, 1,719 arrests were made over the week across the country for various knife offences. Forces this November had a particular focus on knife-enabled robbery, conducting additional patrols of hot spots and targeting high harm offenders.
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Recruitment and Retention
Chief constables are generally less experienced than at any time in the past 20 years, analysis suggests.
The 43 chief constables heading forces in England and Wales have on average served two years and 10 months in their roles, two years fewer than the average of four years and two months over the past 20 years.
This is a further drop on 2018, when the average tenure had fallen to 3.5 years.
There has been a slump in public confidence in the police after a series of misconduct scandals, falling charging rates and cuts to neighbourhood policing. The proportion of the public saying they have confidence in the police has fallen from 50 to 38 per cent in the past four years, according to YouGov.
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Justice
Victims of stalking will be given the right to know the identity of the alleged perpetrator immediately after an arrest under new protections being announced by ministers on Tuesday.
Stalking victims often have to wait until their case reaches court to find out the name of the accused because data protection requirements have led police forces to take a risk-averse approach to identifying suspects. This can lead to victims waiting months or years before they know who is stalking them, leaving them vulnerable to further harassment and unable to spot signs of danger.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, will issue new “right to know” guidance that will ensure the police release the identity of an online stalker following their arrest.
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Police Finances
Leapwise and The Police Foundation recently co-published a brand-new policy paper: ‘Fit for the Future: the case for a reformed national policing landscape.’ If you didn’t catch it, you can find the full version here.
Where we are today
Throughout my career, both at Leapwise and before, I’ve had the opportunity to work all over the world and see all kinds of different justice systems and policing models. Unsurprisingly, nowhere’s perfect! The USA has an endlessly complex system of overlapping law enforcement bodies – 18,000, by one count. Some European systems have extremely localised policing bodies that lack the specialist resources to tackle serious crime effectively. And the UK, specifically England and Wales, is no exception; our model’s far from perfect either.
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Police and Crime General
The police watchdog for England and Wales has called for urgent measures to stop the “adultification” of black children by officers, but campaigners have said the revised guidelines do not go far enough.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct identified adultification as a racial bias that primarily affects black children as well as other minority ethnic children, where they are seen as more “streetwise”, more “grown up”, less innocent and less vulnerable.
In the revised guidelines, which were issued this week, the IOPC said it was crucial that officers understood how adultification could influence decision making leading to the “unjust treatment of children”.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Scaling up early interventions to prevent social care needs escalating could save the public purse £11 billion within six years, according to research.
But despite a boost in council funding next year, local authorities warn that demand for urgent care alongside increases in wages and national insurance mean they will find it difficult to invest in key initiatives to help people maintain health, independence and avoid crisis.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced she will end the “postcode lottery in policing”, in a speech to local PCCs and police chiefs on 19 November.
She confirmed that central government funding for police will go up next year by around £500m and said a detailed breakdown of funding allocations for each force will be published mid-December.
Surrey’s Commissioner said she fears money will be distributed unfairly in Surrey, from the government’s “not fit for purpose” police funding formula.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The former Chief Constable of Humberside Police is under investigation for potential gross misconduct, the BBC understands.
Paul Anderson announced his retirement in June, the following day an investigation was launched into allegations of misconduct.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it had received complaints relating to "allegations of unprofessional behaviour, discriminatory, insensitive and offensive comments".
The Office of the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner said it could not comment further but was aware of the IOPC's assessment of the "allegations made against the former Chief Constable".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The acting chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police has been suspended for alleged "professional standards breaches".
Devon and Cornwall police and crime commissioner (PCC) Alison Hernandez said Jim Colwell had been suspended pending an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation.
Ms Hernandez said: "I have this morning informed the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel of my decision and fully understand that there may be concerns within the force, in our communities and with our partners in relation to this suspension."
The commissioner said she shared "concerns" and said interim leadership arrangements will be made in "due course".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
In a typical week, the unit are charging eight to ten people with offences linked to breaching prison release conditions.
A dedicated unit, described by GMP as the only one of its kind in the UK has achieved an 87 per cent solved outcome rate for crimes since it was formed two-and-a-half years ago the force has said.
The Sex Offender Crime Investigation Team is focused solely on investigating suspected offences of registered sex offenders in Greater Manchester.
[ more...]
Justice
A minister has urged domestic abuse victims “suffering in silence” to seek support as the government rolls out strict new restraining orders to stop abusers from harassing their victims.
Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and violence against women and girls, told The Independent the new measures recognise the issue is often happening behind closed doors.
Her interview comes as domestic abuse protection notices and orders (DAPNs and DAPOs) are due to be tested out in parts of England and Wales before being implemented across the country.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Public services face another four years of tight budgets if they fail to reform themselves, Rachel Reeves has said as she vowed not to put up taxes again. The Chancellor insisted she would not “come back for more” from businesses or individuals and ruled out top-ups to public spending, as estimates by independent think tanks suggest that services including local government will have to make billions of pounds worth of cuts between 2026 and the next election.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
British Transport Police (BTP) has appointed two new roles within its Chief Officer Group.
Ian Drummond-Smith, BTP’s new Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) for Network Policing and Steff Sharp, Director of Corporate Development, have both joined the Chief Officer Group, which makes up BTP’s strategic command team.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Chief Constable of Essex Police has told the BBC he will have to make difficult decisions if the force continues to be "unfairly funded".
Ben-Julian Harrington said financial pressure was making it harder for him to retain officers and "keep Essex safe".
The force's £363.7m budget, external is £40m below what Merseyside Police is granted, despite covering an area that is five times greater in size.
A Home Office spokeswoman said the police funding settlement would provide Essex Police with £406.2m over the next year.
[ more...]
Prisons
Inmates in the crumbling prison estate have been bitten by rates and venomous spiders, according to a new report that lays bare the state of prisons in England and Wales.
Vermin infestations are an “acute issue” across the prison estate, the report found, with inspectors describing cockroach invasions, biting flies living in the showers, dead rodents rotting on the wings and cells taken out of use due to bedbugs.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A neighbour who blasted Bob Marley music was recorded by police for a non-crime hate incident (NCHI).
North Wales Police decided the incident was one of “racial prejudice” after a homeowner complained that the playing of the reggae artist’s tracks was a “way to mock her”.
The incident, details of which were released under freedom of information (FoI) laws, was one of 126 recorded by the force between June 2023 and June 2024.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The “postcode lottery” of police funding could force residents to shoulder more of the burden, according to Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Lisa Townsend.
The PCC said she fears it will be inevitable taxpayers will have to contribute more to policing.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced she will end the “postcode lottery in policing”, in a speech to local PCCs and police chiefs on 19 November.
She confirmed that central government funding for police will go up next year by around £500m and said a detailed breakdown of funding allocations for each force will be published mid-December.
[ more...]
Technology
A police and crime commissioner says she wants to stop anti-social off-road motorbikes by sending drones to follow riders.
The scheme had been successfully trialled in three operations, Durham Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Joy Allen said, adding she hoped to give every community neighbourhood area a drone to tackle nuisance riders.
Drones fly above bikers, follow them to their homes and then officers are sent to seize the vehicles to be crushed.
[ more...]
Technology
Activists clashed with the police in north London on Wednesday after counterterrorism officers arrested seven suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a banned militant group.
The Metropolitan Police conducted dawn raids at eight addresses, including the Kurdish Community Centre in Haringey, as part of an ongoing investigation.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, is a separatist movement that seeks an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey. It has been banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK since 2001. It has been fighting against the Turkish state since the early 1980s.
[ more...]
Technology
Artificial intelligence could be used to predict when prisoners are about to turn violent or take their own lives, under plans being considered to use the technology inside jails to tackle soaring levels of violence and self-harm.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, said she had been briefed on how AI was used in other countries to monitor offender behaviour inside prisons.
She told The Times Crime and Justice Commission that she was “very interested” in emerging technology that combines footage from CCTV cameras with AI to predict behaviour. She said it could be used in Britain to “get ahead of potential violent incidents” and to help prison governors run “more effective, less violent regimes”.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has said “fresh impetus is needed” to crack down on anti-social behaviour.
As she unveiled plans for new town centre bans and powers for police to seize noisy off-road vehicles without a formal warning, the Conservatives’ shadow Home Office minister Matt Vickers claimed the Government had re-announced previously “failed” Asbos, anti-social behaviour orders, introduced during Sir Tony Blair’s premiership.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The government’s entire public sector financial accounts are not fit for purpose, the official audit watchdog has said after the collapse of the “red flag” system that scrutinises billions of pounds of spending in local government.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said it was impossible to sign off the government’s latest public spending figures as accurate because of the unreliability of financial data relating to hundreds of councils and police and fire authorities.
The NAO’s unprecedented decision to “disclaim” the government’s accounts comes amid warnings that the chronic inadequacy of the council audit system – seen as an “early warning” indicator of financial failure or wrongdoing – could result in more councils going bust.
[ more...]
Technology
British police forces have begun withdrawing from X after Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, a survey has found.
The social media platform, formerly Twitter, was used to spread misinformation linked to the Southport stabbings which sparked riots across Britain this summer.
On Monday, Mr Musk, the billionaire owner of X, appeared to back a petition calling for a fresh UK general election as “the people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state”.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police recording of non-crime hate incidents should be scrapped because they have become a vehicle for settling grudges, a former Supreme Court judge has said.
Lord Sumption said police had “no business” recording non-crime hate incidents, which he warned had become a threat to free speech.
“I would just abolish the whole jurisdiction. If they want to make things crimes they should do it, but this kind of intermediate framework of grudge-bearing is just intolerable,” he told The Telegraph.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Hundreds of thousands of teenagers are afraid to go out because of the violence they see on their social media feeds, a major study of children in England and Wales has found.
One in four teenagers who see real-life violence, including fist fights, stabbings and gang clashes, online are being served the clips automatically by algorithmic recommendation features, according to the study done by the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) and shared with the Guardian. Only a small minority actively searched for the violent content.
TikTok is the most likely place for teenagers to encounter real-life violent content, followed by X, according to the survey of more than 10,000 13- to 17-year-olds. New laws are to come into effect from next spring under which tech companies will face large fines if they fail to deploy age checks to prevent children seeing harmful or age-inappropriate content, including serious violence.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A more powerful form of stop and search is “overwhelmingly ineffective” in preventing crime and should be scrapped, a report has said.
The Section 60 stop and search policy, which enables the police to conduct searches of people without needing reasonable grounds, was introduced 30 years ago in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
A Section 60 order can be imposed for up to 24 hours in specific areas where violence is likely to flare.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police will be told only to record non-crime hate incidents when there is a clear risk to community tensions under new “common sense” guidance, the Times has learnt.
Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) were introduced after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence to monitor situations that could escalate into more serious harm or show heightened community tensions, but increasingly they have been used to record trivial incidents and rows.
The Times revealed this month that more than 13,000 incidents were logged by police forces in the past year, including against schoolchildren, vicars and doctors.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Four shoplifters, who stole £120,000 worth of goods from more than 50 branches of Morrisons, led investigators to an international network of organised thieves operating across the UK.
The “Morrisons Four”, as they became known to police, were directed to steal from the supermarket by gangs from Romania, who then resold the goods through a wholesaler and car boot sales. A new documentary by Channel 4’s Dispatches, Britain’s Shoplifting Gangs Exposed, shows how dozens of retailers appear to have been targeted in this way.
An average of 1,300 shoplifting offences are recorded every day in the UK, the highest rate since records began in 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics. But prosecution rates have fallen to a quarter compared with two decades ago. The cost of shoplifting to retailers stood at £1.8 billion in 2022/2023.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Thousands of bar staff will be trained to spot and stop spiking in England and Wales as the government steps up efforts to tackle violence against women and girls.
About 10,000 hospitality workers will be trained in preventing and dealing with incidents of spiking by spring next year, Downing Street said before a meeting with police and hospitality leaders.
The prime minister will host senior police officers, transport bosses and hospitality industry executives in No 10 on Monday to urge a coordinated response to violence against women.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Bobbies on the beat are vanishing despite a 20,000 increase in the number of police officers, the Home Secretary has admitted.
In a speech at the police chiefs’ summit on Tuesday, Yvette Cooper said that even after the previous Conservative government reversed the reduction in the overall number of officers, policing had not returned to our streets.
She cited data from the Office for National Statistics’ Crime Survey for England and Wales, which showed that the proportion of the public who say they never see an officer on the beat has doubled in the past decade.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Policing this summer’s riots cost forces £31.7million and foreign bots “turbo-charged” the spread of misinformation which fuelled the unrest, the UK’s counter-terrorism police chief has revealed.
False information about the identity of the alleged Southport attacker received 27 million impressions on X, formerly Twitter, in the first day after the mass stabbing of children at a Taylor-Swift themed dance class.
Matt Jukes, the head of UK Counter Terrorism policing, said this misinformation was amplified by foreign bots from states, including Russia.
[ more...]
Police Demand
While the amount of anti-social behaviour officially recorded by the police in recent years has fallen, figures in the Crime Survey of England and Wales – which is officially considered a more accurate measure of the behaviour – are up. In the year to June, 36 per cent of people said they had experienced or witnessed some type of anti-social behaviour, up two per cent on the previous 12 months and an increase from 28 per cent a decade ago. LGA Safer and Stronger Communities Board Chair Cllr Heather Kidd MBE said councils have been deploying powers under public space protection orders and using anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) against prolific offenders, but find that problems can “just move to the next place”. Cllr Kidd said: “It does make people feel threatened, because even in a relatively safe area, people will be frightened about intervening and tackling young people.”
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The UK’s largest police force is set to slash 2,000 jobs as part of an eye-watering £450million budget cut.
London’s Met Police, which currently employs more than 34,000 officers, might also see 400 civilian staff jobs scrapped as it prepares to slash its annual finances. Some police stations in London will also reduce their opening hours to the public from 9am to 5pm, The Sun reports.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Dangerous criminals will become harder to catch as a result of “eye-watering” budget cuts being forced on the police, the Met Commissioner has warned.
In a stark letter to Scotland Yard’s 46,000 officers and staff, Sir Mark Rowley said the financial pressures facing the force meant police numbers would have to be drastically cut and priorities would need to change.
He said the impact of the budget cuts on the public should not be underestimated and would inevitably make it harder for the police to catch criminals and bring them to justice.
[ more...]
Justice
Hooligans face two years in jail for breaching newly unveiled "respect orders" designed to crack down on anti-social behaviour.
Courts could also hand out unlimited fines, order unpaid work or impose a curfew on those who break the rules.
The measures - set out in Labour's election manifesto as part of a bid to "return law and order to our streets" - aim to nip the worst behaviour in the bud, the Home Office said.
[ more...]
Prisons
Ministers believe that tens of thousands more prisoners can fill labour shortages by targeting them with more jobs support and training while behind bars.
Prisoners will be among millions of people set to get extra career support in sweeping changes to the welfare state in a white paper to be published on Tuesday.
The plans, titled “Get Britain Working”, will cite statistics showing that less than a third of prison leavers find employment within six months of release, while the rate of employment for criminals serving non-custodial sentences in the community is still less than half.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces will be "compensated" for the increase in employers' national insurance, the home secretary has revealed.
Yvette Cooper told a policing conference the Treasury has said it will "ensure" police forces will not lose out as a result of changes in employers' contributions brought in as part of last month's budget.
It is the first time this has been revealed.
[ more...]
Technology
A new national centre of policing will be set up to provide all police forces with expertise in forensics, drone technology, artificial intelligence and other technological advances.
The new body will ensure policing in the UK takes advantage of the latest technology available and is better equipped to meet the evolving nature of crime.
It will also minimise the differences in capability between police forces and ensure the standard of policing is more consistent across the country.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Rising household energy bills have caused inflation to rise to 2.3 per cent, a six-month high, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures add pressure on the Bank of England to delay interest rate cuts until next year, it is reported.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The numbers of police conducting a regular patrol or walking a certain route have decreased in recent years, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Incidents of shoplifting have reached a 20-year high, according to figures recorded by the police. A survey of shopkeepers by the Association of Convenience Stores found that 94 per cent felt that the problem had worsened in the last 12 months.
[ more...]
Police Finances
An extra £500 million of additional funding will be given to neighbourhood policing, the Home Secretary is set to announce. Yvette Cooper will also lay out plans for a new unit to improve the performances of police forces across the country to end the "postcode lottery" of how effectively crimes are dealt with. The Home Office says the unit will directly monitor police performance in areas prioritised by the government, including tackling violence against women and girls and knife crime. The Home Secretary will make the announcements in her first major speech at the annual conference of the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners on Tuesday.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Almost £2m has been claimed under the Riot Compensation Act (RCA), external in response to widespread disorder across the UK last summer, the BBC has discovered.
According to figures from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), shared exclusively with the BBC, 88 separate claims have been registered.
The riots broke out after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a children's dance event in Southport, and subsequent misinformation the suspect was an asylum seeker.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police should use “common sense” when recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), Yvette Cooper has said.
The Home Secretary said inspectors had found there was inconsistency and confusion among officers regarding the reporting of such cases.
However, speaking at an annual summit of police chiefs, she defended the principle of recording NCHIs, saying it was “immensely important” to monitor anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to help police identify where there was a risk of prejudice escalating into violence.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Speaking to policing leaders at the APCC National Police Chiefs’ Council Partnership Summit 2024 in London, Emily Spurrell welcomed the Government’s ambitious agenda for reform and outlined police and crime commissioners’ (PCCs) commitment to achieving meaningful change that works for the public.
Ms Spurrell said: “Proposals for reform need to recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach will rarely be the right solution but, scaling up approaches that demonstrably work is in all of our interests.
“As PCCs we are committed and ready to work together with our policing partners to achieve purposeful change that will make a real and lasting difference to policing and criminal justice outcomes, and improve the public’s experience of policing.”
In her speech, Ms Spurrell, PCC for Merseyside, called on police leaders to call out “irresponsible behaviour, inflammatory language and lies circulated on social media”.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The home secretary has promised to end a "postcode lottery" in policing, as she set out plans to overhaul the work of forces in England and Wales.
Yvette Cooper announced a new body which would co-ordinate specialist functions such as forensics, IT, and the use of drones and helicopters.
She also said forces needed to share more information with the Home Office to enable better monitoring of police performance.
[ more...]
Technology
Knife crime campaigners hope virtual reality technology will help them get their message across about what the aftermath of a stabbing is really like.
A series of immersive films has been created, including one offering advice about how to effectively use bleed control kits to save a stabbing victim's life.
The technology has been demonstrated at a special event for secondary school pupils at Liverpool FC's Anfield Stadium.
Matt Littler, founder of technology firm ARK Immersive which developed the films, said he wanted young people to leave their session "armed with the knowledge of what [knife crime] does to the people left behind".
[ more...]
Technology
MPs gathered in Westminster to debate the issue of live facial recognition, where the Policing Minister acknowledged the absence of a single law to give the police the power to use the technology. But having only served less than five months in office, she said the government wanted to take time to listen to find a way that the use of live facial recognition “secures and maintains public confidence.”
Dame Diana Johnson told MPs that she is committed to a “programme of engagement” to inform the government’s thinking about how policing uses live facial recognition (LFR) as part of its operations and how to achieve the balance of privacy and safety using legislation. Currently LFR is governed through College of Policing guidance and existing data and privacy laws.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has appointed two new Deputy Directors General as part of a package of wide-ranging reforms.
Kathie Cashell and Steve Noonan will take up their permanent positions in the New Year.
Kathie becomes Deputy Director General (Strategy, Engagement and Communications) within the new management structure which aims to deliver a high performing organisation trusted by both the public and the police. She has been Acting Deputy Director (Strategy and Corporate Services) for the last 18 months and started working for the IOPC’s predecessor, the IPCC, in 2007.
Steve Noonan is the new Deputy Director General (Investigations, Oversight and Casework) responsible for planning the direction of investigations and ensuring the effective delivery of all IOPC investigations as well as overseeing the police complaints system. He has been Acting Director of Operations since October 2023 and started working for the IPCC in 2013. Previously he served in HM Armed Forces with the Royal Military Police for 23 years.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police are “wasting valuable time and money by doing things in 43 different ways”, with huge and urgent changes needed to end a postcode lottery for victims, the leader of Britain’s police chiefs has said.
The stark intervention by Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), comes as law enforcement leaders privately discuss radical changes, including a new policing directorate with legal powers to boost the fight against the biggest crime threats in England and Wales.
In an article for the Guardian, Stephens, the “chief of chiefs”, says: “We are wasting valuable time and money by doing things in 43 different ways. Police forces all struggle with the same issues and spend time and money on finding individual solutions. We need to do it once, and well, for all.”
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Attacks on the police happen on average 100 times a day in the UK, the BBC has found. Officers say they are used to being punched and kicked, but assaults have become more frequent – and more extreme.
In September 2023, PC Stuart Furlonger was attending a low-risk call at a block of flats in Peterlee, County Durham.
As the 33-year-old attempted to escort two people from the building, a man riding a quad bike deliberately crashed into him at speed.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) says it has made wide-ranging changes to the treatment of women in custody, following a Sky News investigation.
This includes ending the use of police strip searches for "welfare" purposes and ensuring it is a "last resort" when looking for concealed items.
A Sky News investigation in 2023 into the custody practices of GMP led to an inquiry by former victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Responding to tweets should not be the police’s first priority and forces should “concentrate on what matters most to their communities”, the prime minister has said, as Essex police investigate an allegation of inciting racial hatred by the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson for allegedly posting a message on X labelling protesters as “Jew haters”.
Keir Starmer said he would defend the police’s right to make operational decisions, and said they would be “held to account” for them.
His comments were made as fierce debate about free speech continued after Pearson claimed she was left “dumbstruck” by a visit by police officers to her home on Remembrance Sunday over a long-deleted social media post and “accused of a non-crime hate incident”. A number of people who backed the far-right rioters over the summer were arrested and charged for allegedly sending tweets that were considered incitement.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police forces are to be set national targets in areas including violence against women and girls, knife crime and call response times as Yvette Cooper pledges to drive up results.
The home secretary is to create a policing performance unit to assess forces’ effectiveness, including in priority areas such as neighbourhood policing. She is concerned that standards vary across the country, leaving the “precious British principle of policing by consent in peril”.
Emulating the initiative introduced by David Blunkett, the home secretary in 2001, the unit will monitor time spent on the front line and collect force-level data by crime type to give a clearer picture of local performance. Blunkett welcomed the proposals on Saturday night.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police are to be set minimum standards for solving crimes including violence against women, knife offences, robbery and theft under plans to be unveiled this week by Yvette Cooper.
The Home Secretary will announce the creation of a policing performance unit which will aim to end the “postcode lottery” where some forces are up to six times more likely to charge an offender for a crime like shoplifting than other constabularies.
The unit will monitor time spent on the front line and collect force-level data by crime type to give a clearer picture of local performance.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Professional gangs of fraudsters are committing “crime without consequence” because police are dedicating just 1% of resources to the epidemic - despite it accounting for 40% of all offending.
Last year the previous government published a new strategy to tackle the explosion of fraud cases, but fresh Home Office data shows prosecutions for fraud have actually fallen over the last 12 months.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK's economy slowed by more than expected between July and September, with uncertainty about the Budget being blamed for the weak growth. The economy grew by just 0.1 per cent over the period, and the Office for National Statistics said activity was subdued across most industries. A number of economists said that concerns about what measures would be included in October's Budget had affected decision making by firms and households.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Home Office "cut corners" and made "poor decisions", while under pressure to stop housing migrants in hotels, when it paid £15m for an asbestos-contaminated derelict prison, the government's spending watchdog has said.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said the amount paid for the Northeye site in East Sussex in 2023 under the Conservative government was more than twice what the seller paid in 2022.
A report found "corners [were] cut" so the site could be acquired quickly to house asylum seekers despite an assessment deeming it "high risk".
[ more...]
Prisons
A police force has been criticised by regulators for leaving some cells "dirty" and not having "enough oversight" of its custody suites.
Inspectors said they found "badly stained" toilets at Thames Valley Police stations when they visited in July and urged senior leaders to make improvements.
Incidents involving force also needed better scrutiny to ensure it was always "justified, necessary and proportionate", HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and the Care Quality Commission said
Thames Valley Police said its quality assurance processes have "completely changed" since the inspection took place.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning what she calls the "biggest pension reform in decades" in an attempt to boost economic growth.
The government wants to merge the UK's 86 council pension schemes into a handful of "pension megafunds".
It is hoped the changes will lead to billions of pounds being invested in the UK in areas such as energy infrastructure, tech start-ups and public services.
[ more...]
Prisons
Next to a vandalised wire fence opposite HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, 28-year-old Beatrice Auty brushes away tears. The memories of her time inside the jail are too much to bear.
She served more than a year here for money laundering, and claims she was sexually harassed by a male prison officer.
“He made me feel very uncomfortable,” Auty says. “He commented on my appearance - a lot. He suggested he wanted to come to my cell - I feel if I had been up for it, he would have wanted sexual favours.”
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A new training programme considerably reduces the use of force by police without leading to a rise in harm to officers, a large-scale trial has found.
The study, published in the Justice Evaluation Journal and led by researchers at King’s College London and the College of Policing, found the programme led to a 10.9% decrease in the likelihood that officers used force in a given week, with the biggest reductions seen for “hands-on” uses of force such as restraining someone on the ground, which declined by 14%.
The likelihood of a member of the public being injured by police during a use-of-force incident also fell, by a third, while there was no change in the risk of a police officer being injured.
[ more...]
Justice
Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, says the Ministry of Justice has left him “to rot” after telling him he is likely to have to wait months before learning if he is even eligible for compensation.
Malkinson had his conviction overturned last year after he was wrongly convicted of a 2003 rape in Greater Manchester.
Since the conviction was quashed by the court of appeal 16 months ago, he has been struggling on universal credit and forced to turn to food banks.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Metropolitan Police faces "eye-watering" cuts to the force's spending, its boss has warned.
Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said he was "deeply troubled by the situation" and that back-up options such as selling police stations "have run out".
"Some of the challenges the Met faces come from desperately trying to keep a significant number of police officers but cutting everything else," Sir Mark said.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police have defended their actions after a Telegraph columnist was told she faced investigation over a year-old tweet.
Conservative politicians accused police of “targeting journalists for expressing opinions” after Allison Pearson said she was accused of a non-crime hate incident when officers attended her home on Sunday. Pearson, 64, said two officers accused her of stirring up racial hatred.
Essex police issued a statement to the newspaper saying that when a crime was reported “we investigate” and that they did so “without fear or favour”. They also claimed there had been “a large amount of false reporting” about the incident.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A police force that investigated the deaths of patients at a scandal-hit hospital has formally dismissed corruption complaints from victims' families.
At least 456 patients died after being given powerful painkillers inappropriately at Gosport War Memorial Hospital between 1989 and 2000, an inquiry previously found.
The families accused 16 police officers of corruption and dishonesty over the investigations, which did not result in charges.
[ more...]
Justice
Offenders with a history of domestic abuse have gone on to reoffend after they were freed from prison under the Government’s early release scheme, i has been told.
Charities and senior MPs have called for the Government to stop all domestic violence perpetrators from getting out early under the emergency scheme launched in September.
It comes after i revealed that the probation service is struggling to cope with the “chaos” of the mass releases aimed at dealing with the prison overcrowding crisis.
[ more...]
Justice
Shoplifters who assault store workers face up to six months in jail under a crackdown to combat the epidemic of thefts.
In a speech on Tuesday, Dame Diana Johnson, the policing minister, said Labour would create a new stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker.
She pledged: “There is no place for anyone who abuses shop workers, and we are changing the law to come after you.”
[ more...]
Justice
Rape victims in England and Wales have echoed the message of Gisèle Pelicot in France that “shame belongs to perpetrators, not them”, in the largest ever survey of rape and sexual assault survivors, according to the government’s key adviser on the crime.
Three-quarters of respondents to the survey of rape and sexual assault survivors said their mental health was damaged “as a direct result of what police did, or failed to do, in their case” and only one in 10 said they would report again, according to researchers.
But a radical overhaul of the way the criminal justice system deals with rape since 2021 is showing the first “green shoots” of improving victims’ experience of the criminal justice system, with respondents after July last year 8% less likely to report damage to their mental health because of the police.
[ more...]
Justice
Police in Jersey are encouraging people to "make better use of Clare's Law to prevent domestic abuse".
The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme - known as Clare's Law - is intended to provide information that could protect someone from being a victim.
It gives people the right to ask police if their partner has an abusive past.
The initiative is named after 36-year-old Clare Wood who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 2009 in England.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
GPS systems are being stolen from farms to guide missiles in the Russia-Ukraine war, an MP has claimed.
Tim Roca, MP for Macclesfield, said organised crime gangs have been stealing the systems from tractors and combine harvesters in the county to sell to Eastern Europe.
Once they are sold on, the Labour MP said during a debate on rural affairs, they are being repurposed to guide Ukrainian weapons.
Mr Roca told the commons thefts by organised crime gangs have meant insurance claims on the units have increased 137% in 2024, after an initial rise following the start of the conflict in February 2022.
[ more...]
Technology
Recorded evidence from alleged rape victims is being undermined at trial by poor court technology that risks jurors losing interest, a senior lawyer has claimed.
Mary Prior KC, the chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, said that highly touted efforts by the courts service and prosecutors to encourage complainants in rape and sexual offence cases to pre-record evidence is being failed by inadequate court infrastructure.
The lawyer — who routinely prosecutes and defends in the crown courts — said that screens showing pre-recorded evidence were often placed at the other side of courtrooms from the jury box, making it difficult for jurors to see and sometimes even to hear witness evidence.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A serving Gloucestershire police officer has been arrested on suspicion of a terrorism offence.
A constable in his 30s was arrested by counter-terror police on Tuesday in Gloucester under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of providing support for a proscribed organisation, which Gloucestershire Constabulary named as Hamas.
The suspected support for the group is related to online activity, the force added.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Kent’s police and crime commissioner is seeking an urgent review of the way police funding is allocated following October's Budget.
Matthew Scott said the changes announced to employers’ National Insurance contributions would lead to an additional cost of £5.7m to the force.
In an open letter to the Home Office, he said Kent Police was now facing "an acute problem" exacerbated by an "unfair funding arrangement".
[ more...]
Justice
Prison contractor Serco has warned it faces a £20m-a-year hit from Rachel Reeves’s National Insurance (NI) tax raid, amid a broader funding crisis that has thrown the prison system into chaos.
The company, which runs five adult prisons across the UK, said on Friday it was “actively exploring ways to offset” the burden of the Chancellor’s maiden Budget last month.
It is understood that Serco is examining its contracts to work out if there is scope to pass on some of the added costs to its customers, which include the Government, as well as looking at other ways to cut costs by increasing efficiency.
[ more...]
Justice
Jails are failing the victims of crime because inmates are being freed without rehabilitation only to commit further offences, the Prisons Minister has warned.
In his first interview in the role, James Timpson told the Mirror something was “clearly going wrong” when 80% of crimes were done by someone who had offended before. He said people are leaving jail addicted to drugs, with no qualifications and, he added, without “hope”. Lord Timpson set out his vision for prisons to be places where people are punished by their loss of freedom but are also rehabilitated to divert people from a life of crime.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Homeless prison leavers are twice as likely to reoffend than those with a permanent place to live, official figures released for the first time show.
Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reveal that more than two-thirds of adults in England and Wales who left custody without accommodation in the final quarter of 2022 reoffended within a year.
Social justice charity Nacro warned the data shows the need for "adequate investment in housing" as the government seeks to reduce the numbers of offenders in prisons.
[ more...]
Prisons
“We weren’t given much notice when we were leaving,” says ex-prisoner Jason. "Now, I'm lost. I don't actually know what to do."
He walks across London to meet us but he has no money for a bus. He says he has a travel ticket given to him when leaving prison, but bus drivers don’t often accept them.
“They don't know what they are, even when I explain. They don't let me onboard,” he says.
It happened again, but Jason, which is not his real name, is keen to tell us his story and explain why he has gone from sleeping in a prison cell to living on the streets after his early release.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The first recipients of an award for emergency service workers who die in the line of duty have been announced.
The Elizabeth Emblem, named after the late Queen, will be given to the next of kin of more than 30 deceased firefighters, police officers and public servants in recognition of their loved ones.
Among those honoured are PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes, who were killed in an ambush responding to a bogus 999 call in September 2012.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
“The best year of my life in football now doesn’t feel like something I can celebrate,” said Manchester City’s Jack Grealish after burglars raided his Cheshire house while his family was home.
The invasion of the England football player’s home was one in a recent string of burglaries targeting the homes of high-profile sports stars when they are on the field or overseas.
To criminals, the home of a footballer is no doubt an attractive proposition; likely to contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of high-value goods, including electronics, jewellery, designer clothing and luxury watches.
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Police Finances
Kent’s police and crime commissioner is seeking an urgent review of the way police funding is allocated following October's Budget.
Matthew Scott said the changes announced to employers’ National Insurance contributions would lead to an additional cost of £5.7m to the force.
In an open letter to the Home Office, he said Kent Police was now facing "an acute problem" exacerbated by an "unfair funding arrangement".
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Economy & Public Finance
In a widely predicted move, the bank’s monetary policy committee voted by a majority of eight to one to reduce the bank rate by 0.25 percentage points.
It said it expected inflation to rise slightly again over the next year, to around 2.75%, before falling back to its 2% target.
“If inflation remains low and stable it’s likely that we will reduce interest rates further,” it said in its quarterly monetary policy report.
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Police and Crime General
The number of people waiting for DBS checks to be processed by Sussex Police has increased over the past month.
Figures obtained by the BBC show 12,072 people were waiting for enhanced DBS checks to be processed by the force in October.
That is more than the waiting list of 10,633 enhanced applications that the BBC reported were outstanding in September.
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Prisons
Prison contractor Serco has warned it faces a £20m-a-year hit from Rachel Reeves’s National Insurance (NI) tax raid, amid a broader funding crisis that has thrown the prison system into chaos.
The company, which runs five adult prisons across the UK, said on Friday it was “actively exploring ways to offset” the burden of the Chancellor’s maiden Budget last month.
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Police Finances
Thames Valley's police and crime commissioner is seeking an urgent review of the way police funding is allocated following last week's Budget.
Matthew Barber said the changes announced to Employers’ National Insurance contributions would lead to a shortfall of about £1.3m.
In an open letter to the Home Office, he said the force was now facing "an acute problem" exacerbated by an "unfair funding arrangement".
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Police Finances
A new interactive map reveals the UK's shoplifting hotspots, with the scale of the crisis varying dramatically area by area.
Police data shows the North East takes the top spot for shoplifting crimes, with a rate of 11.5 per 1,000 people - 35 per cent higher than the national average.
The area covered by Cleveland Police is worst affected, with 14 reports per 1,000 people, while Dyfed-Powys Police in Wales reported the lowest, recording just three
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Police and Crime General
Police will no longer be able to hold people who are being detained for mental health reasons in police cells, under government plans for England and Wales.
Officers can currently use cells as a "place of safety" for up to 24 hours to allow those needing immediate care to be assessed by a doctor.
New legislation will also introduce additional rights for those receiving treatment, in a bid to modernise decades-old mental health laws.
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Police Demand
Fraud in Britain is at epidemic levels. It accounts for 40 per cent of all crime. More than 3.2 million frauds are committed each year and hundreds of millions more attempted. The public is under constant attack from scammers — a quarter of people are targeted each week.
Despite this tidal wave of criminality, prosecutions are going backwards. There were fewer than 4,000 fraud charges last year, a 10 per cent fall on the previous year. The number of successful prosecutions is so low that it’s separated from other crime data as to not skew the results.
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Police Finances
Lincolnshire's police and crime commissioner said that people in the county could see "a difference in service levels" if government funding is not increased.
Marc Jones said the force was facing a potential £19m shortfall.
He said the National Insurance increase announced in the Budget last week alongside a pay award would cost an additional £5m.
The Home Office said there would be "real increases in funding for policing".
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Police and Crime General
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to use counter-terrorism tactics to stop people-smuggling gangs "before they act", as he announced an extra £75m to police the UK's borders.
In a speech, the prime minister said the UK's new Border Security Command (BSC) would "treat people smugglers like terrorists", with enhanced powers to trace suspected human traffickers and shut down their bank accounts.
The cash boost, which will be used to hire hundreds of new investigators and intelligence officers, takes the funding for the BSC to a total of £150m.
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Police Finances
A high-security prison has become “an airport” because so many drugs are being delivered to its inmates by drones, a watchdog has warned.
Charlie Taylor, chief inspector of prisons, said prisoners at HMP Garth, a high security jail holding long-term violent offenders, were burning holes in their cell windows more quickly than they could repaired in order to secure drug deliveries by drone.
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Police Demand
A Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has vowed to tackle "toxic Andrew Tate-type" attitudes among young people.
Northumbria PCC Susan Dungworth is launching a series of short films following concerns over young people being exposed to the influencer's misogynistic views.
Made in partnership with Rape Crisis Tyneside and Northumberland, the resources will be available to schools, youth leaders and educators to help those who have felt "left in the dark" on how to broach the subject.
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Police Finances
A new partnership has been announced to recruit, train and develop exceptional new detectives, dedicated to protecting the nation from economic crime – including fraud and cybercrime.
This new stream of Police Now’s National Detective Programme will pilot in March 2025 in the City of London Police, the national lead police force for this specialist area of policing.
Economic crime amounts to almost half of all recorded crime in the UK. It has a significant impact on the public, with criminals often preying on the most vulnerable. At Police Now’s recent induction event, offer holders preparing to join the stream heard from City of London Police senior leaders, who reflected on the enormous impact their investigations have had for the public – including working with national banks to bring down an international organised crime group and seize millions in laundered money.
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Police and Crime General
The Government has been told to stop using the term “shoplifting” to describe theft from the high street, as peers warn it trivialises a serious offence involving organised criminal gangs.
Lord Foster of Bath, the chairman of the House of Lords justice and home affairs committee, has urged the Home Office, the police and other agencies in the criminal justice system to start using the expression “shop theft” to describe stealing from stores.
Writing to Dame Diana Johnson, the policing minister, Lord Foster said the committee of peers was “concerned that use of the historic term ‘shoplifting’ is outdated, not least due to the rising involvement of organised crime, and is trivialising the severity of the offence”.
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Recruitment and Retention
A record number of police officers were sacked in England and Wales last year as forces boot out rogue colleagues.
Dismissals increased by 50 per cent from 394 to 593 in the year to March 31, figures show. Twenty per cent were sacked for dishonesty — the most commonly recorded breach — and discriminatory behaviour was recorded in 74 cases.
Eighteen officers were sacked for being part of discriminatory WhatsApp groups while the same number were found to have possessed indecent images of children. Meanwhile, 33 officers who abused their position for a sexual purpose were deemed unfit to serve the public.
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Police and Crime General
The uproar following the acquittal of Police Sergeant Martyn Blake over the death of Chris Kaba exposes a deep unease with the police complaints process. Even without knowing about Kaba’s past criminal record, the jury spent barely three hours before acquitting Blake. Yet last night’s BBC Panorama documentary suggests that those in the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – who took the original decision to refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) – remain convinced they were right to do so. This apparent failure to learn lessons raises worrying concerns about the IOPC’s approach.
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Police Finances
Lincolnshire's police and crime commissioner said that people in the county could see "a difference in service levels" if government funding is not increased.
Marc Jones said the force was facing a potential £19m shortfall.
He said the National Insurance increase announced in the Budget last week alongside a pay award would cost an additional £5m.
The Home Office said there would be "real increases in funding for policing".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Fraud in Britain is at epidemic levels. It accounts for 40 per cent of all crime. More than 3.2 million frauds are committed each year and hundreds of millions more attempted. The public is under constant attack from scammers — a quarter of people are targeted each week.
Despite this tidal wave of criminality, prosecutions are going backwards. There were fewer than 4,000 fraud charges last year, a 10 per cent fall on the previous year. The number of successful prosecutions is so low that it’s separated from other crime data as to not skew the results.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The BBC has come under fire for screening a documentary about Chris Kaba a fortnight after it was revealed that a bounty remained on the head of the police officer who shot him dead.
Kaba, a 24-year-old gangster, was killed by Sgt Martyn Blake, a Met firearms specialist, after trying to ram his way out of a police roadblock in Streatham, south London.
A jury at the Old Bailey took three hours to clear Sgt Blake of murder following a trial last month.
But despite the verdict and subsequent revelations about Kaba’s links to gun crime in London, the BBC has broadcast an episode of Panorama that raises questions about the conduct of the police operation that led to the fatal shooting in September 2022.
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Economy & Public Finance
Let’s start with the plaudits. Chancellors faced with the sort of tough public finance situation that Rachel Reeves has inherited have tended to take an axe to investment. That happened in the 1990s. It happened again after the financial crisis. The effects of public sector investment are diffuse and long-term. So credit where it’s due. The budget may only have done enough to keep public investment stable as a fraction of national income, but that’s better than the sharp fall pencilled in by Jeremy Hunt. The economic benefits will arrive years, if not decades, down the road. Subject to the money being spent well, this is an encouraging prioritisation of long-term growth.
As far as the fiscal framework is concerned, targeting a current budget balance in 2029-30 for the next couple of years and then working to a rolling three-year target — ie, looking for a current balance three years out — makes a lot of sense.
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Economy & Public Finance
Workers have been warned their pay will be hit by Budget tax rises aimed at employers.
Firms will bear the brunt of the Budget's £40bn total tax rise due to an increase in the National Insurance rate for employers as well as a reduction in the threshold at which they start paying it.
Businesses are likely to respond by holding back on pay rises, influential think tanks, the government's independent forecaster and the chancellor herself have all said.
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Police Demand
The story is familiar to almost every victim of bike theft: report the matter to the police and get told there is not much they can do.
Alasdair Bayman, 28, got the same response when he reported the disappearance of his £2,000 customised Cannondale bike but refused to let the matter rest.
Within 48 hours he was on the thief’s doorstep with a policeman beside him and watched as the suspect was handcuffed and led away to the police station.
Bayman, a marketer for a cult film distributor, said that he was amazed by the result, which came after he and a friend used their detective skills to find the bike on sale and deduce from photographs where it had been stored.
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Recruitment and Retention
Police officers in Scotland will withdraw goodwill in protest at a pay offer they said shows "contempt" for their work.
Officers in Scotland are prohibited by law from taking industrial action or withdrawing labour, but the decision means they will stop shifts at their scheduled time and not commence shifts early.
The Scottish Police Federation, external, the body that represents rank and file officers, said the move would take effect from Friday 1 November at 17:00.
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Recruitment and Retention
Yesterday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered the first Labour Budget since 2010, promising to protect public services, restore economic stability and begin a decade of national renewal.
And while there was very little in the way of announcements for ambulance and fire services, updates that impact policing did feature.
First and foremost, it is good to see that the Chancellor upheld many of the pledges made in Labour’s election manifesto earlier this year.
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Police Finances
Suffolk was named as one the "safest places in the country" after reports of knife crime were revealed to be at their lowest for eight years, according to new data.
Data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows 303 crimes involving a knife were recorded by Suffolk Police between June 2023 and June 2024.
In the 12 months to June 2022, meanwhile, the force received 485 knife crime reports from across the county, making for a reduction of about 38%.
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Technology
In this third and final conversation, Bernard Rix interviews Gavin Stephens, QPM, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, discussing the current state of policing in England and Wales.
They explore the historical context of the policing model, the need for reform to address technological advancements and changing crime patterns, and the challenges of governance and decision-making within the police forces.
Gavin emphasises the importance of national coordination and a long-term vision for the future of policing, including workforce planning and financial strategies. The conversation concludes with reflections on the evolving role of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and its objectives for the future.
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Police Demand
Police in part of Merseyside have unveiled a new fleet of e-bikes to help tackle anti-social behaviour.
The bikes would enhance officers’ operational capabilities, extend their patrol areas and increase visibility in locations that traditional police vehicles could not easily access, Merseyside Police said.
Launching the bikes in St Helens on Monday, Insp Josh Griffiths said officers were seeing criminals increasingly using bikes and e-bikes "so we must have the tools to match and outpace them".
The new bikes would help officers with disrupting the activity of organised crime groups, he added.
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Recruitment and Retention
The latest police workforce data for England and Wales shows the roller coaster ride for resources during the 2010 to 2024 Conservative-led governments, with numbers dropping sharply followed by a rapid but partial with the Uplift after 2019; in this last of three articles, Ian Wiggett looks at changing trends in workforce profile across England and Wales, and how this may affect resource management.
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Police and Crime General
The search for the next chief constable of Warwickshire Police is under way.
The force area's police and crime commissioner (PCC), Philip Seccombe, said the right candidate would have "exceptional leadership skills, a public-facing approach, and a talent for community engagement".
The process follows the decision of the previous chief constable, Debbie Tedds, to retire in September.
She was the first female chief constable of the force, which was established more than 160 years ago.
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Police and Crime General
A police move to attend fewer welfare and mental health calls is showing signs of success, a police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
Dorset Police began to reduce deployments to "concern for welfare" incidents from April, and to missing patients from July, PCC David Sidwick told the county's crime panel.
He said early signs suggested police workload had reduced without any adverse effects.
The commissioner said the force could save 2,500 officer hours a year through the national Right Care, Right Person initiative.
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Technology
Our 3rd Webinar concludes with a fascinating set of questions from the audience addressing the challenges and implications of using AI in law enforcement, particularly in the field of digital forensics.
Our panelists highlight the need for regulation and expertise in this area, as well as the importance of collaboration between the public and private sectors, answering questions such as;
“Do we need to train investigators to a much higher level ?”
“Thoughts on the current Home Office code of guidance on when a device can be seized”
“With such a lack of awareness of the intricacies of AI how is AI evidence being approached and accepted in court?”
“Interoperability : How do we share good practice and what has gone wrong across forces globally ?” “How are we preparing ourselves for dealing with countries and entities who are not going to use AI ethically ?”
“Will there have to be sacrifices to operationally security when incorporating Gen AI to assist in investigations, especially in Cyber Crime ?”
The conversation also touches on ethical issues, such as the use of AI in digital strip searches, and the need for data quality in implementing AI technologies.
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Recruitment and Retention
Police officers are set to become higher rate taxpayers by the end of the decade as Rachel Reeves weighs a “stealth tax” on incomes, Telegraph analysis suggests.
The Chancellor is considering extending the freeze on tax-free personal allowances, currently £12,570, by two years until 2029.
It means a slate of middle-income professionals, including policemen, accountants, civil engineers and bin men managers, will be dragged into the 40 per cent tax bracket as their earnings steadily grow.
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Police and Crime General
A police boss has suggested that when people leave unwanted items of furniture outside their homes for others to collect for free they are fly-tipping.
Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) David Sidwick was commenting on an incident in which a woman from Southbourne in Bournemouth was fined £500 for leaving furniture outside her house, inviting people to take it away.
Isabelle Pepin's action led to a fine and wide reporting of the incident.
Mr Sidwick said in his opinion similar actions are illegal.
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Police and Crime General
The Society of Editors and the Crime Reporters Association have warned that plans to introduce a presumption of anonymity for firearms officers facing criminal trial represents “a significant departure” from the principle of open justice.
In a joint letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Society of Editors executive director Dawn Alford and Crime Reporters Association chair Rebecca Camber sought assurances that the new framework could not one day expand to cover other officers accused of using force in the line of duty.
The anonymity proposals — introduced last week after the police officer who shot Chris Kaba dead in 2022 was found not guilty of his murder — would keep the identity of accused firearms officers secret until they are convicted.
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Police and Crime General
The acquittal last week of Sergeant Martyn Blake, a Metropolitan Police firearms officer, for the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba has rightly focused considerable attention on the tactics used by the service to apprehend suspected criminals.
Kaba, who died in Streatham Hill, south London, in September 2022 after ramming an unmarked police car, was one of three people shot and killed by police in Britain that year. This was broadly in line with the annual average of 2.4 over the past five years (or about 0.04 per million people).
He was one of 31 people to die in this way since Mark Duggan, whose killing in August 2011 sparked the London riots. About half of these were in the capital, and six were terrorists, including the three London Bridge attackers of June 2017.
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Police Finances
A county council has unanimously approved a motion that called for fairer police funding for the area and raised awareness of domestic abuse.
On Tuesday Cambridgeshire County councillor Alex Bulat, from Labour, proposed the motion which was seconded by Philippa Slatter, a Liberal Democrat councillor, with an alteration proposed by Conservative Steve Count.
The motion said that Cambridgeshire remains the fourth lowest funded police force in the country, adding that local taxpayers finance about half of the police’s budget in the county.
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Police Demand
Shoplifting has soared to a record high with almost half a million offences recorded last year, new figures have revealed.
A total of 469,788 offences were logged by forces in the year to June 2024, up 29 per cent on the 365,173 recorded in the previous 12 months.
The figure is the highest since current records began in the year to March 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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Police Demand
Crime experienced by individuals and households in England and Wales increased 10% over the past year, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Robbery, violence with injury and fraud increased notably in the 12 months up to June 2024 – returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, the number of shoplifting offences recorded by police rose by 29% to reach a 20-year high.
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Prisons
A prison is so "dilapidated" an inmate was able to remove his own cell door, an inspection has found.
A watchdog has called for Winchester prison, a category B jail in Hampshire, to be put into emergency measures over concerns of "very high levels of violence" and drug problems.
Inspectors wrote to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood to issue an urgent notification for improvement.
An inspection carried out earlier this month found examples of "weaknesses in physical and procedural security", with one wing so "dilapidated" an inmate had "been able to remove his own cell door".
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Police Finances
A county council has unanimously approved a motion that called for fairer police funding for the area and raised awareness of domestic abuse.
On Tuesday Cambridgeshire County councillor Alex Bulat, from Labour, proposed the motion which was seconded by Philippa Slatter, a Liberal Democrat councillor, with an alteration proposed by Conservative Steve Count.
The motion said that Cambridgeshire remains the fourth lowest funded police force in the country, adding that local taxpayers finance about half of the police’s budget in the county.
The motion called on the council officers to write to the home secretary and local MPs to campaign for a fairer share of police funding for the area.
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Police and Crime General
A review into how police officers who take fatal shots in the line of duty are held to account is to be revived by the government.
The investigation, initially launched by the previous Tory administration, will now be completed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who will make a statement to the House of Commons later on Wednesday.
As he confirmed the review, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was important the public have confidence in the police and the police have confidence in the government.
It comes days after police officer Martyn Blake was cleared of the murder of Chris Kaba, who was shot in the head during a police vehicle stop in Streatham, south London, in September 2022.
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Police and Crime General
Tony Long is a member of a small, exclusive club he'd rather not belong to.
He's one of four police marksmen who have stood trial for murder after shooting dead a suspect.
The most recent was Martyn Blake who was cleared today of murdering Chris Kaba in south London in September 2022.
I asked Mr Long a question he has been asked many times: how does a firearms officer feel after killing someone?
"Me personally, a sort of emptiness," he replied. "Feeling a sort of guilt, but not feeling guilty, if that makes sense.
"You know, for me and for all of us, really, I suppose, taking human life isn't something you take casually, not unless you're a psychopath. And I also felt anger."
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Prisons
The government is releasing 1,100 more prisoners early, as part of its emergency plan to ease overcrowding in jails in England and Wales.
Offenders serving more than five years are being released on licence after spending 40% of their time behind bars, a scheme that excludes those convicted of serious violence, sex crimes and terrorism.
The second tranche of emergency releases since September comes as ministers launch a major review of sentencing with a focus on new forms of punishment outside of jails.
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Prisons
Criminals could serve sentences at home under house arrest as part of government plans to “reshape and redesign” punishments outside prison.
Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, who is carrying out a sentencing review, is drawing up plans for a major expansion of community punishments as an alternative to jail, in which judges use technology to create virtual “prisons outside of prison”.
Courts would have powers to enforce the virtual prisons through technology such as GPS tags, smart phones and special watches that remind offenders to attend meetings with probation officers, drug treatment courses and work placements.
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Police and Crime General
In this conversation, Gavin Stephens, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, discusses the current challenges facing UK policing, including public confidence, workforce issues, and the need for reform.
He emphasizes the importance of trust in policing, the role of neighbourhood policing, and the necessity of adapting to modern community needs. The conversation highlights the ongoing efforts to improve policing standards and the significance of a cohesive approach to reform in the face of evolving societal demands.
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Prisons
There has been a "drastic deterioration" in Welsh prison safety in the last year with a huge increase in prisoner-on-prisoner violence, a report has found. Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults have increased by 80% in the last year, according to the Cardiff University report published on Wednesday.
There has also been a drastic increase in assaults on staff (up 69%), as well as incidents of self-harm (up 53%). The analysis was carried out by the Wales Governance Centre.
The report shows that troubled HMP Parc in Bridgend saw the steepest rise in all these incidents. Assaults on staff there increased by 19%, self-harm incidents by 113% and self-harm incidents requiring hospital treatment increased by 190%. A spokespeson for HMP Parc said incidents of violence and self-harm have fallen significantly between April and October 2024.
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Recruitment and Retention
Met police officer denies exaggerating threat to justify shooting Chris Kaba
Court sees videos prosecution says show Martyn Blake got wrong key parts of claim fatal shot was fired in self-defence
Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent
Tue 15 Oct 2024 17.44 BST
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The Metropolitan police officer who shot dead Chris Kaba in south London with a “supersonic” bullet to the head denied making false or exaggerated claims to justify opening fire.
Martyn Blake, 40, denies murder. His evidence continued into a second day on Tuesday as he was questioned by the prosecutor Tom Little KC.
Kaba, 24, was shot after police forced the car he was driving to stop, believing it was linked to a firearms incident the night before.
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Police Demand
The narrow medieval streets and canals of Strasbourg in France, on the border with Germany, have little in common with Southport in the UK. Yet the stabbing of three little girls there resonated for one man here. And his subsequent posts on social media resonated around the world - and back to the UK.
In a business park on the edge of town, Silvano Trotta runs a successful telecoms business. But from his large private office, filled with miniature cars and pictures of his family, he spends much of his time posting online.
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Police Demand
The Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has welcomed the news that his force has increased the charges for shoplifting offences by 98%.
Matthew Barber said he was "pleased" to see 1,691 shoplifting charges made between 1 April – 13 October across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Milton Keynes.
This is compared with 852 for the same period in 2023.
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Economy & Public Finance
Ministers have given the clearest hint yet that Rachel Reeves is looking to raise national insurance contributions for employers in the budget, provoking accusations the chancellor is preparing to break a Labour manifesto pledge.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, suggested that the chancellor could increase the levy on employers, which is charged at a rate of 13.8 per cent of most workers’ salaries.
He stood by the party manifesto, which ruled out raising income tax, VAT or national insurance, but refused to say that this applied to the rate paid by employers as well as that paid by employees.
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Police and Crime General
Lancashire's Police and Crime Commissioner says he has written to the government to ask them to strengthen the laws on the use of e-bikes.
Clive Grunshaw was responding to concerns about the bikes on a BBC Radio Lancashire phone-in.
Caller Paul from Blackpool said they had been ridden at speed along the Promenade and were a "menace", causing danger to other road users.
"There's a lot of anti-social behaviour linked to them too," he said.
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Technology
The Home Office will deploy cameras with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology across Europe to track down people smugglers facilitating small boat crossings.
A mixture of static and mobile cameras will be installed along routes believed to be used frequently by organised crime groups (OCGs).
They will be used on marked and unmarked police cars, according to a document on the government’s website inviting suppliers to bid for the contract.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has highlighted Northern Ireland-style policing of protests as an alternative to how demonstrations are policed.
The force has come under fire in the past year over its policing of pro-Palestine protests, as well as accusations of two-tier policing from the left and the right.
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Police and Crime General
A Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) is still searching for a replacement after the chief constable was suspended over allegations of gross misconduct.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it is investigating allegations against Rod Hansen, Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Constabulary.
Gloucestershire does not currently have anyone who could temporarily step in, as former deputy chief constable Shaun West retired in the summer amid an ongoing misconduct investigation.
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Economy & Public Finance
The cost of borrowing money to buy a home is "unlikely" to return to the low levels seen over the past decade, the boss of the UK's largest mortgage lender has said.
Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds bank, said the bank expected mortgage rates to come down, but not to the near-zero rates they were during the 2010s.
The rate charged on new fixed mortgage deals has risen in recent years as a result of an increase in interest rates to try to slow soaring price rises, sparked by the Covid pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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Economy & Public Finance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will need to come up with billions of pounds more to meet the government’s pre-election promises, according to calculations by influential think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The government has promised no return to “austerity” for public services and a boost to government investment, designed to kickstart growth.
But to honour those commitments the chancellor will need to “grasp the nettle” and come up with £16bn more on top of £9bn tax rises set out in the Labour manifesto, the IFS said.
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Police and Crime General
A new study by the N8 Policing Research Partnership has found a lack of effective evaluation of police activity to tackle drugs markets, leading to responses built on an evidence base that is “distressingly weak”, a “whack-a-mole” approach to police operations, and forces resorting to short termism, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
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Police and Crime General
Victims of antisocial behaviour are being failed by police who too often treat it as a low-level problem, the official watchdog has found.
Officers are failing to record nearly half of antisocial behaviour incidents as crimes which would allow them to prosecute the perpetrators, according to a report by the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
The inspectors warned that downgrading antisocial behaviour could even cost lives because of the trauma that victims suffered as a result of persistent harassment and abuse.
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Police and Crime General
Yvette Cooper received a free ticket to a Taylor Swift concert weeks before being involved in the decision to give the pop star VIP police protection for her Wembley tour.
The Metropolitan Police took the highly unusual decision to give the singer a blue-light motorcycle escort to her Eras Tour shows after a foiled terror plot in Austria.
It was reported that police were reluctant to agree to the request, which was demanded by Swift’s management, as there was no credible intelligence of a threat.
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Police and Crime General
The investigation into the violent disorder in Staffordshire could take 12 to 18 months, according to the county’s chief constable.
More than 100 people have been arrested in connection with the riots in Stoke-on-Trent on 3 August and Tamworth on 4 August.
Nearly 50 of those arrested have been charged.
During a meeting with Police and Crime Commissioner Ben Adams on Monday, Chief Constable Chris Noble of Staffordshire Police said there were “horrendous” incidents of violence committed against officers during both days of unrest.
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Prisons
The prisons system was "teetering on the edge of disaster" after being run "so hot for so long" by the previous government, prisons minister Lord Timpson has said, while speaking for the first time publicly since taking the role.
Addressing delegates at a meeting of the Prison Governors' Association in Nottingham, the Labour peer said that changes including emergency early release measures were "quite frankly, a rescue effort".
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Police Demand
MI5 is grappling with the dual threat of hostile states trying to cause “sustained mayhem” on British soil and the resurgence of Islamic State, the nation’s spy chief said today.
Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, warned that renewed efforts by Isis to carry out mass murder plots in the west was the terrorism trend that “concerns me the most”.
He also revealed a dramatic increase in investigations of assassination, kidnap, arson and sabotage plots by Russia and Iran.
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Recruitment and Retention
West Yorkshire Police had dropped face to face interviews in favour of online applications, inquest into student officer's death hears.
The officer in charge of welfare at West Yorkshire Police has told an inquest into a student officer’s death that it is a “massive problem” that young recruits are being managed by inexperienced officers with big increases in officers requesting welfare support and elevated drop-out rates among degree apprenticeship recruits.
Chief Inspector John Toothill, current head of health and wellbeing, was giving evidence at Rochdale Coroners’ Court following the death of Anugrah Abraham (pictured) 21, from Bury, Greater Manchester.
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Recruitment and Retention
The Home Office is funding civilian "safer street wardens, external" across parts of a county.
New roles in Breckland will work to deter street drinking and shoplifting using frequent high-profile patrols.
The project is being led by Norfolk's Police and Crime Commissioner.
The scheme has received attention on social media, external with some welcoming the patrols - while others saying what is really needed is more police.
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Police and Crime General
Greater Manchester Police have handed a file of evidence to the CPS following the incident in July involving GMP officers, Fahir Amaaz and his brother Muhummad Amaad.
The lack of charges brought so far against the civilians involved in the Manchester Airport incident is an example of “two-tier policing”, a group of MPs have claimed.
Video footage appeared to show a man be kicked and stood on during an incident at the airport on July 23. A Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officer was suspended and is now criminal investigation alongside another officer, who as well as assault is also being investigated for breaches relating to use of force.
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Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner has said that the funding formula for forces needs to be changed but appreciated it would happen "over time".
John Tizard, the Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner, said he had hoped the area would receive additional funding to meet the needs of "gun crime, trafficking and modern slavery", but he was not expecting "large sums of money to come in the short term".
A previous commissioner had criticised the government's funding formula after it classed the county as a rural area when he claimed it faced issues similar to those found in cities.
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Fire
Having issued a vote of no confidence in West Midlands Fire Authority, CEO Oliver Lee has now been suspended from his post subject to the decision being supported at a meeting of the authority next week.
The announcement was made late on Monday 7 October and comes after the Birmingham Post published an interview with Lee where he shared more detail about why he had taken the decision to go public with a vote of no confidence.
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Police and Crime General
Summer night bus services were a "great success" in helping lower crimes across parts of Devon and Cornwall, police said.
Devon and Cornwall Police said 2,144 people used a Stagecoach service for Bideford, Barnstaple and Ilfracombe and a circular First Bus service for Newquay which operated from 6 July and 7 September.
The services - which ran from Saturday nights into Sunday morning - were part of an initiative to tackle offences like drink-driving, violence against women and anti-social behaviour (ASB), the force added.
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Recruitment and Retention
Two former Metropolitan Police officers have been handed their jobs back after winning an appeal against a ruling that they had lied about a stop and search incident involving British athlete Bianca Williams.
Former Met PCs Jonathan Clapham and Sam Franks were dismissed in October last year after a disciplinary panel found that they had lied about smelling cannabis when they stopped a car in which Olympic sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos and his partner Ms Williams were travelling.
The finding has been overturned by the Police Appeals Tribunal, which found that the original decision had been “irrational” and “inconsistent”.
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Police Demand
When the Palestine Solidarity Campaign organised its first protest against Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, days after Hamas’ deadly terror attacks on 7 October 2023, leaders expected the conflict to be over within weeks.
“I remember saying to my staff ‘we are probably going to need to be responding to this through marches until potentially Christmas’,” recalls director Ben Jamal. “I didn’t see beyond that.”
His calculations were based on previous conflicts in the Gaza Strip. In 2021’s crisis, Israeli bombing and Hamas rocket fire lasted for 11 days, while the 2014 war continued for seven weeks, and 2012 saw eight days of bloodshed before a ceasefire was reached.
But after a year, the current war shows no sign of stopping and is instead spreading to Lebanon and threatening to escalate further following Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel.
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Police and Crime General
Having recently been elected to serve a fourth consecutive term, Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore is one of the country’s longest-serving PCCs; in an exclusive interview with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, he explained how the lack of clarity around chief constables’ operational independence “causes tension and friction”, called on the new government to avoid a “dictatorial” centralised approach to policing, and said chief constables “need a better understanding of public expectations”.
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Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner has said that the funding formula for forces needs to be changed but appreciated it would happen "over time".
John Tizard, the Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner, said he had hoped the area would receive additional funding to meet the needs of "gun crime, trafficking and modern slavery", but he was not expecting "large sums of money to come in the short term".
A previous commissioner had criticised the government's funding formula after it classed the county as a rural area when he claimed it faced issues similar to those found in cities.
Tizard, who has published his four-year crime plan, also confirmed there will not be any more police buildings in the county.
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Police and Crime General
Four former police officers are under investigation over what has been described as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
Andrew Malkinson, now 58, was jailed for a rape he did not commit after he was wrongly convicted in 2004. He was finally released when his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal last year.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating complaints by Malkinson about Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and its rape investigation.
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Police and Crime General
In this conversation, Bernard Rix interviews Sir Andy Marsh, CEO of the College of Policing, about the importance of neighbourhood policing and the new initiatives aimed at professionalising this area of policing. They discuss the impact of austerity on neighbourhood policing, the structure of the professionalisation program, and the potential for international learning in policing practices.
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Prisons
"If it gets much colder, I am thinking of doing something, just to go back to prison," says Leon Lear, 43, as he sits next to the remnants of his failed fire on the edge of a playground in Bridgend, South Wales.
The wood was too damp to burn; the only ash is from cardboard from a nearby recycling bin. A damp sleeping bag hangs over the railings.
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Police and Crime General
In the second of a two-part interview, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke QPM DL told Policing Insight’s James Sweetland that the Inspectorate should play a role in picking chief constables as he and his team “know more about policing than police and crime commissioners”; he also explained why the Inspectorate needs new powers, and how a £13 million funding boost could pay for an artificial intelligence “early warning system” to identify forces at risk of going into special measures.
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Technology
It is now urging people to provide an extra layer of protection, such as enabling 2-Step Verification (2SV), to protect their online accounts from fraudsters.
The warning comes as part of an awareness campaign on social media and email account hacking for Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Adam Mercer, deputy director of Action Fraud, , the national fraud and cybercrime reporting service, said: “Cyberattacks and hacking are carried out by faceless cybercriminals who target unsuspecting victims looking to take advantage of unprotected social media and email accounts.
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Prisons
Before modernising prisons through new architecture, as discussed by Yvonne Jewkes, there are other issues to consider (‘Places to heal, not to harm’: why brutal prison design kills off hope, 24 September). There are examples of places that have radically transformed prisoners that have not relied on architecture.
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Prisons
The prison officers’ union is taking Labour to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in an attempt to win back its right to strike.
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) is seeking to persuade the Government to repeal Conservative laws from 1994 that removed their right to strike.
Ministry of Justice (MoJ) sources have, however, said there are no plans to review the ban on strike action, raising the prospect of a court battle in the ECHR.
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Justice
A justice minister has opened the door to thieves, shoplifters and other common criminals being spared short jail sentences.
Sir Nic Dakin said short prison terms were more likely to result in making offenders “better criminals” rather than rehabilitating them and turning them into “better citizens”.
It is the strongest indication yet that Labour’s forthcoming sentencing review - due to be announced next month - could pave the way for scrapping many short jail terms. These would be replaced with community punishments geared towards rehabilitation, meaning some low-level criminals would avoid jail.
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Economy & Public Finance
Institute of Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson says changing the measure of debt, reportedly being considered by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, could free up billions for investment, but is not a risk-free move. He writes: “In any case none of this fiscal fiddling is of much help to Reeves when it comes to pressures on day-to-day spending. For it is not just her debt rule that constrains. She is also up against it on her pledge to borrow only to invest. However many billions she may “free up” for investment by changing her fiscal rules, she is still likely to have raise taxes if she wants to increase, or even maintain, spending on public services.”
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Police and Crime General
The animal rights group Peta has called for the use of police dogs to be phased out after animals were hit with bricks and burned during riots last month.
Staffordshire PD Vixen was one of several to be injured as disorder swept the UK in the wake of the Southport stabbings.
The charity called for "safer, modern policing technology" to replace dogs.
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Justice
A justice minister has opened the door to thieves, shoplifters and other common criminals being spared short jail sentences.
Sir Nic Dakin said short prison terms were more likely to result in making offenders “better criminals” rather than rehabilitating them and turning them into “better citizens”.
It is the strongest indication yet that Labour’s forthcoming sentencing review - due to be announced next month - could pave the way for scrapping many short jail terms. These would be replaced with community punishments geared towards rehabilitation, meaning some low-level criminals would avoid jail.
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Justice
Prisoners could be released earlier from jail for good behaviour under Texas-style penal reforms being considered by ministers.
In an effort to reduce re-offending and tackle overcrowding, Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, wants the Government’s sentencing review to consider the Texan prison system, where offenders can earn time off their sentences if they behave well and take part in rehabilitation schemes.
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Police Finances
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and UK Research Innovation have pledged £4.5m of funding for the creation of up to nine Policing Academic Centres of Excellence (P-ACEs) to boost innovation and seek out new ways to tackle crime. More via Emergency Services Times
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Justice
The former most senior criminal judge in England and Wales has said the government has to recognise "locking people up for longer" does not deter crime.
Sir Brian Leveson, the former head of criminal justice, told an online event that detecting crime was a better way of reducing offending than long prison sentences.
The retired judge also said "more social care needs to be devoted" to offenders or those at risk of committing crime.
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Police and Crime General
Police officers who are targeting knife crime have said watching drill music videos posted on YouTube by local gangs has become an increasingly important part of the job.
The Xcalibur task force was originally set up in 2004 by Greater Manchester Police to stop gun crime but has shifted focus to deal with teenagers carrying knives.
Figures from the force show more than 400 people under the age of 25 were hurt by knives in a 12-month period between 2023 and 2024, though the figure has fallen compared to previous years.
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Police and Crime General
His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMCIC) Andy Cooke discusses the recently published report on activism, highlighting the key findings and recommendations.
The report focuses on issues of operational independence, impartiality, hate crime recording, police staff networks, and external advisory groups, while the lack of legislation and guidance around operational independence and the outdated Equality Act are identified as systemic issues.
The recommendations target both the government and Chief Constables, emphasizing the need for clarity and support for police officers. Andy also discusses His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Policing, Fire & Rescue Services’ (HMICFRS) role in policing reform and the importance of recruiting the right people for key roles.
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Justice
Dozens of people released from jail under the government's emergency prison scheme were freed by mistake.
A Ministry of Justice source said 37 people were released in error on 10 September, because their offences for breaching restraining orders were wrongly logged under repealed legislation.
This meant these cases were not flagged for exemptions, which were designed to prevent those guilty of certain types of crime from being released.
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Police Finances
A police force has revealed it had spent more than £100,000 kennelling seized dogs, including 17 XL bullies which were spared death by magistrates.
The pets were found to be unregistered with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) following a change in the law last year.
Magistrates in Great Yarmouth sat in a special session over two days last week to determine the future of the dogs.
Paul Sanford, chief constable of Norfolk Police, described paying for the dogs to be kennelled as a "new demand and new pressure".
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Justice
While set to be excluded from the scheme – known as SDS40 – incorrect logging of these offenders in relevant records held on the system, meant they were mistakenly defined as eligible under the scheme and released early as a result, the Victims’ Commissioner said.
“I’m very troubled to learn that 37 offenders were released early from prison in error as part of the early-release scheme introduced to tackle prison overcrowding,” said Baroness Newlove.
“This news will have been distressing for the victims, particularly given that all the offenders were serving prison sentences for breaching restraining orders, indicating that they present a potential risk.
“When this scheme was first announced, I said victim safety must be the first priority – and this remains my position. It is important every step is taken to make sure this error is not repeated. Returning all these offenders to custody must be an overriding priority.
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Police Demand
The number of arrests at football matches in England and Wales increased by 14% in 2023-24, but the number of matches at which incidents were reported fell. Police said the numbers were evidence of a more “proactive” approach to dealing with trouble at grounds.
According to Home Office statistics, 2,584 football-related arrests were made last season, up from 2,264 the previous year and largely driven by an increase in the number of individuals arrested over class A drugs. The number of banning orders in England and Wales also rose, to an active total of 2,172, an increase of 34%. The number of matches reporting incidents stood at 1,341, a decrease of 17%.
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Recruitment and Retention
A former police officer has been handed more than £1m in compensation after it was ruled she had been discriminated against.
Katrina Hibbert was a safeguarding sergeant with Thames Valley Police (TVP), working with victims of child sexual and drug exploitation in Cherwell and West Oxfordshire.
She had started a party and events business as a "positive outlet" to help her cope with the stress of her job, a tribunal heard.
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Recruitment and Retention
If you started again with a clean slate, a blank sheet of paper, you would never design a system of policing like this.
It’s a system – in England and Wales – where there are 43 ‘territorial’ forces. No matter how big or small, each force has its own leadership structure, specialist units and support functions, such as finance, vetting and human resources. For instance, there’s Warwickshire constabulary with just 1,126 officers, and neighbouring West Midlands Police, with 8,000. They work together at times, but they are led, managed and organised in separate ways.
The most glaring discrepancies are in the capital. The Metropolitan Police, which has 34,315 officers, is 34 times larger in terms of personnel than City of London Police, with only 995 officers. But the Met and City both have their own commissioners, senior officer teams and crime investigation departments, not to mention their own uniforms and liveried vehicles.
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Police and Crime General
When the news broke of stabbings at a children’s dance class in Southport this summer, a palpable sense of grief, horror and anger rippled across the country.
From the collective anguish brought on by the incident in which three young girls died, variations on the same question emerged: “Who would do such a thing?”
Fabricated internet rumours claimed to have the answer: the man to blame was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK illegally last year and was on an M16 watchlist.
There was one big problem: none of it was true.
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Police and Crime General
Set up six years ago, the National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC), part of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) is funded by the Home Office with the aim of coordinating national law enforcement activity across England and Wales, increasing intelligence on the County Lines threat, and informing national policy development and best practice.
Launched in 2018, the NCLCC has developed the national intelligence picture for County Lines and helped police forces to report and identify the threat of County Lines within their own policing areas and further afield. This work continues and supports the new Safer Streets mission.
With the scale and nature of this cross-border crime, NCLCC acts as the central body for County Lines and coordinates the national law enforcement response and best practice.
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Police and Crime General
On Tuesday a ban on owning zombie-style knives and machetes comes into force, following a four-week amnesty scheme where owners were encouraged to hand the weapons into police, local authorities or knife crime charities.
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Police and Crime General
Labour plans to introduce ‘zero tolerance’ zones in city and town centres to combat anti-social behaviour, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced.
The police will receive new powers to issue ‘respect orders’, which can ban repeat offenders involved in harassment, drug use, street drinking, and other disruptive behaviours from entering city centres.
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Police and Crime General
People who experience hate crimes believe it is “a waste of their time" reporting the incidents to police, a Belfast community worker has said.
Earlier this month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) released figures which showed reported race hate crimes in the last 12 months were at their highest level since records began in 2004.
Alexis Ekwueme, who works closely with migrants in the city, told BBC News NI that police must do more to reassure ethnic minority groups that reports will be taken seriously.
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Justice
Andy Cooke QPM DL has served as HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary since April 2022, leading the body responsible for inspecting police forces across England, Wales and Northern Ireland; in the first of a two-part interview with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, Mr Cooke described the criminal justice system as “the most bureaucratic and the slowest that I’ve ever seen it”, explained why “just saying ‘institutional racism’ isn’t going to change anything”, and shared his concerns that the Police Race Action Plan is “taking an awfully long time to come to fruition”.
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Police and Crime General
The government will bring in a raft of "respect orders" to crack down on anti-social behaviour, the home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper, speaking at Labour's conference in Liverpool, called the previous Conservative government "right-wing wreckers" as she lumped them in "with their mates in Reform".
She said the Tories have "nothing to offer but fear, division and anger" as she put her government forward as championing "respect and the rule of law.
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Technology
Some of the country's most notorious cold cases could be solved with the help of an artificial intelligence tool that can do 81 years of detective work in just 30 hours.
Avon and Somerset Police are trialling the technology which can identify potential leads that may not have been found during a manual trawl of the evidence.
The Soze tool - developed in Australia - can analyse video footage, financial transactions, social media, emails and other documents simultaneously.
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Police Demand
Shoplifting offences in Kent are at their highest level for seven years, according to police figures.
Kent Police said from 2023 to 2024 offences were up by 19.2%, with 2,433 more cases reported. Of the total, 26.9% of shoplifting cases were solved.
Retailers say shoplifting is becoming more blatant and staff retention is more difficult as a result.
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Recruitment and Retention
The investigation into a chief constable who was later found to have lied about his career has led to better-enforced vetting checks, a police commissioner said.
Nick Adderley, of Northamptonshire Police, was sacked when he was found to have invented key details of his Royal Navy service.
The Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) for the county, Danielle Stone, told the police, fire and crime panel the case was "shocking".
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Police and Crime General
Women and girls will be better protected under a new national strategy which will use advanced data analysis and algorithms to relentlessly target the most dangerous perpetrators of abuse.
This initiative is part of an ambitious, unprecedented mission to reduce such violence by 50% within the next decade. It will see police forces use new data-driven tools to focus on the small number of offenders responsible for the highest levels of harm.
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Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police has set out plans to try to rebuild trust with London's black communities which it says have been "let down" over a number of years.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said "there remains a long way to go and there is a lot more work to do", but added the Race Action Plan, external "was a step in the right direction".
It includes a new stop and search charter, an overhaul of its policy on intimate searches on children and measures to help black victims of crime.
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Prisons
Criminals could have their internet access removed instead of being sent to prison, a senior police officer has suggested.
Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said limiting an offender’s internet would act as a “virtual prison” in order to “keep communities safe”.
The prison population hit a record high of 88,521 this month and at one point in August under 100 cells were available.
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Police and Crime General
The Home Office does not know how many police stations there are in England and Wales, the Minister for Policing has revealed.
Dame Diana Johnson, who was also a minister under Gordon Brown and former chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said she was “shocked” when officials were unable to give a number.
She said the Home Office’s lack of basic evidence for policies was one of her major “frustrations” on re-entering government.
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Justice
Crime victims in UK fight ‘devastating’ practice that stops appeal after a case is dropped
Senior law officers urged to intervene over potential wrongful acquittals when Crown Prosecution Service offers no evidence
Dame Vera Baird: An empty apology from the CPS? That’s no justice for rape victims
Shanti Das
Sat 21 Sep 2024 17.35 BST
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A “draconian” practice that stops crime victims challenging last-minute decisions to drop their cases is leading to miscarriages of justice and must urgently be reformed, campaigners say.
Under the Victims’ Right to Review (VRR) scheme, victims can challenge decisions not to charge a suspect or to halt a prosecution. Successful appeals can lead to cases being reopened and may result in a conviction.
But the Observer has uncovered details of nine rape and sexual offence cases where the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) offered no evidence shortly before trial, resulting in the case being closed and the defendant acquitted – before the victim could appeal.
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Police and Crime General
Domestic abuse specialists will be embedded in 999 control rooms in England and Wales as part of the Government's pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. The measure is part of "Raneem's Law" in memory of Raneem Oudeh, 22, and her mother Khaola Saleem who were murdered by Ms Oudeh's estranged husband in 2018. The Government also announced a new domestic abuse protection order pilot that will order more abusers to stay away from victims and impose tougher sanctions if they fail to do so.
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Economy & Public Finance
Inflation has held steady at 2.2 per cent in the year to August, according to official figures. It means inflation remains slightly above the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent but is significantly lower than at the peak of the cost of living crisis in 2022.
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Police Finances
Merging police and crime commissioners with mayors could make police forces more efficient and accountable, a panel of Labour mayors has said.
Giving evidence to The Times Crime and Justice Commission, Andy Burnham, the metropolitan mayor of Manchester, said that “holding the whole police force to account” was “too difficult a challenge” for a single police and crime commissioner (PCC). Combining mayors with PCCs across the UK would allow “wider advice” from a “team” of people.
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Justice
The government has defended the early release of prisoners after it emerged a former inmate allegedly sexually assaulted a woman on the same day he was freed.
Amari Ward, 31, was released on Tuesday as part of the policy, which aims to ease prison overcrowding.
He appeared at Croydon Magistrates' Court on Thursday charged with sexual assault and is due to attend Maidstone Crown Court next month.
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Prisons
Prisons will run out of space again in as little as nine months, despite thousands of criminals being freed under Sir Keir Starmer’s early release scheme, ministers have been warned.
Hopes that emptying up to 5,500 prison places could buy 18 months before jails filled up again have been dashed after hundreds of people were charged over the rioting that broke out this summer.
A senior justice source said: “The early release scheme is only going to buy us nine months. There is a recognition that the period has been shortened by what has happened around the disorder.”
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Technology
Live facial recognition (LFR) technology is being used by police in Hampshire for the first time.
Vans in Portsmouth, Southampton, Basingstoke and Winchester have been scanning people passing a camera during a three-day pilot scheme.
Images are compared to faces put on a police watch list with an alert immediately issued if they match.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy did not grow in July, despite expectations from many economists that there would be some growth of 0.2 per cent over the summer months. It follows an unexpected economic slowdown in June.
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Economy & Public Finance
Dame Diana Johnson said the Labour government is still ‘working through’ whether they will recruit new officers or repurpose existing staff
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Police Finances
As part of the government’s commitment to restoring neighbourhood policing, it has announced that specialist training is being rolled out across the country.
This comes as crimes such as shoplifting, snatch theft, and antisocial behaviour are increasing in occurrence. With this in mind, the government pledged to put thousands more neighbourhood police officers, community support officers, and special constables out on the streets and patrolling town centres.
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Technology
Nearly a month after anti-immigration protests and riots shook the UK, policing authorities have announced the arrest of 1,280 people, the majority of which were captured after obtaining video footage and matching their faces with retrospective facial recognition. Meanwhile, police authorities continue to announce new deployments of live facial recognition for public safety.
The police compiled evidence against the rioters using footage from body-worn video cameras, social media, CCTV and video doorbells. Additional video materials were captured by drones and helicopters and by evidence-gathering teams deployed on the ground during the protests, according to a document released by the UK parliament.
As of August 30th, 796 people have been charged for involvement in the violence that followed the Southport stabbing attack, which left three children dead and ten other people injured. The police have identified hundreds more suspects in connection with the disorder, data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) shows.
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Recruitment and Retention
A video featuring police officers talking about their struggles with mental health has been created in a bid to help colleagues open up about their feelings.
The film, released by North Yorkshire Police Federation, also features members of the force discussing their experiences of a loved one taking their own life.
A total of 210 police officers in England and Wales took their own lives between 2011-21, an average of 19 officers every year, according to Office for National Statistics data.
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Police Demand
A landmark report by the victims' commissioner for England and Wales, Baroness Newlove, finds that two-thirds of people (63 per cent) who reported anti-social behaviour said their problem had not been resolved. The majority of victims, more than 60 per cent, reported it to multiple agencies and seven in ten people said they received no support at all. The Government also says it wants to hold local authorities accountable for their role in tackling anti-social behaviour, with councils required to do more to work with police forces, schools, and community organisations. Responding to the new report, Cllr Heather Kidd, Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: “The LGA is working with councils to advise government how to achieve its stated aim of tackling anti-social behaviour. This will include better information sharing between agencies and better co-ordinated action.”
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Police Finances
The president of Police Superintendents’ Association said victims are being ‘failed in the most damaging way’ as he called for more investment in policing
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Justice
Hundreds of survivors of crime are unaware that their perpetrators will be freed on Tuesday despite requests that this would not happen, the victims’ commissioner has claimed.
As the government prepares to release 1,700 offenders to ease overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales, Helen Newlove said some victims were “unaware of their offender’s release” and could not seek protective measures.
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Justice
Swigging a can of raspberry gin and tonic outside HMP Brixton just after 10am on Tuesday, Steven Quinn said “this is quickest I’ve ever been released”.
The burglar, 42, said he has spent the past 25 years in and out of prison, but this time he was behind bars for stealing a safe from a shop at night.
Quinn, from Enfield in north London, was among hundreds of car thieves, drug dealers, violent criminals and other offenders who were freed early across the country as the government tries to tackle overcrowding.
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Justice
On the day that more than 1700 prisoners are being released early in England and Wales to reduce prison overcrowding, the APCC’s Joint Leads on Criminal Justice, Danielle Stone and Donna Jones, said:
“Extending the release of prisoners on standard determinate sentences is a pragmatic solution to the prison capacity crisis. Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) recognise this will be supported by a multi-agency approach to ensure communities are kept safe. In the medium and longer term, the commitment to build more prisons should improve the situation, but more immediately we need a fully resourced and supported probation service to manage the increase in offenders serving more of their sentence in the community. More probation officers must be recruited as soon as possible.
“Police and Crime Commissioners will play a leading part in the Probation Task Force and, through the Criminal Justice Boards which PCCs routinely chair in their areas, will coordinate courts and police response to the issue locally.”
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Prisons
Plans to release thousands of prisoners early have prompted fears of rising homelessness and reoffending.
The new early release scheme will kick in this week as ministers seek to reduce pressure on the prison service and free up jail space.
The government said it had "inherited a justice system in crisis", but concerns have been raised over released prisoners being unable to find accommodation.
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Justice
Police are ignoring anti-social behaviour, a major report by the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales has suggested.
Victims of anti-social behaviour have been left suffering persistent abuse for more than five years because of the failure of police and councils to act on their complaints, according to the report by Baroness Newlove.
Victims told researchers they thought police had ignored their reports because they deemed the crimes to be “low-level”. Others said they were told by police that there were not enough officers to come and tackle the abuse they were facing.
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Police and Crime General
Idris Elba has told the government's new anti-knife crime coalition "talk is good but action is important" as he called for a variety of perspectives.
The British actor and musician, 52, attended the first annual knife crime summit with Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Monday morning.
As an anti-knife crime campaigner, he is helping to bring together community groups and victims' families who have first-hand experience that can be used to change policy.
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Police Finances
A county police chief is asking the public what it believes should be its funding priorities.
Joy Allen, the Durham force's Police and Crime Commissioner, has launched a survey to find out which issues, such as anti-social behaviour and drug abuse concern locals the most.
She said feedback will be used with existing research and crime figures to draw up the police and crime plan for 2025-29.
Anyone living in County Durham or Darlington is invited to complete the online survey.
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Justice
The Labour manifesto could not have been clearer. Thanks to the Tories’ failure to build jails, “prisoners are being released early … and fewer dangerous criminals are locked up because of a lack of space”. Now we have Labour’s solution: release prisoners early, and lock up fewer dangerous criminals.
OK, I’m being slightly facetious. The prisons crisis is one of those problems with no good answers. Anyone who saw the BBC’s report from inside Pentonville last week — crowded cells, leaking toilets, rocketing levels of violence, suicide and self-harm — will appreciate how awful the situation has become. The new prisons the Tories promised have run into planning difficulties, like everything else in this country. And now we need to find space for all the summer rioters, too.
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Justice
Arrests at large protests, including those organised by pro-Palestine and environmental groups, will probably be made more quickly in the future, the Metropolitan police’s assistant commissioner has said. Matt Twist also suggested that the force had not got “everything right” in handling demonstrations over the past year.
The capital has seen a number of large-scale protests since October last year, some of which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people to central London. Among them were demonstrations held by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which is calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
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Prisons
Police Scotland have been criticised over plans to introduce a Tripadvisor-style survey for criminals to rate their experience in custody.
The plans were confirmed via a post on the force’s intranet, which said that the “custody user experience survey” will be sent out by text message to “persons who have been within the custody environment”.
It added: “Therefore, it is incumbent that staff record mobile telephone numbers from persons brought into our care.”
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Justice
The Government is reportedly not ruling out sending offenders to Estonia as a means of alleviating severe overcrowding on the UK prison estate. Sky News reports that having offenders serve out their sentence in the Baltic state is one of many options being considered to address overcrowding on the prison estate - where there are thought to be just over 1,000 spaces left in prisons across England and Wales.
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Justice
As the country suffers an epidemic of shoplifting, partly driven by police officers giving up on punishing the culprits, one force is winning the battle against thieves by taking a zero-tolerance approach.
Paul Sanford, Norfolk Constabulary’s chief constable, has “gone back to basics” and seen the force top the nation’s rankings for catching and prosecuting shoplifters. Its charging rate for the crime is 31.7 per cent — compared with 5.5 per cent for the Metropolitan Police.
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Police Finances
A police force has a £7m financial black hole due to increased demands and a funding freeze.
Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Chris Nelson said he would do "whatever it takes to balance the books".
He added that "officer numbers are protected" but some are being used to fill police staff roles.
It has been estimated the force will need to save £7m in 2025/26, £10m in 26/27 and £12m in 27/28, a report states.
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Recruitment and Retention
Hundreds of Humberside Police officers have been signed off work due to mental health issues over the past year, according to statistics.
Data released under a freedom of information request showed 260 had taken time off because of stress, depression, anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The Humberside Police Federation, which represents officers, said the demands on those in some departments were "overwhelming" and "at times cannot be sustained".
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Fire
Campaigners and survivor groups have called for police to accelerate the criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire after a report found that companies operated with “systematic dishonesty” and that all 72 deaths were avoidable. A seven-year public inquiry culminated on Wednesday in a report that laid bare “decades of failure” by central government and “egregious behaviour” by a string of manufacturing firms. LGA Chair Cllr Louise Gittins said councils would take time to consider the recommendations in the report and stand ready to accelerate work with government to make all buildings safe
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Technology
North Wales Police will use live facial recognition (LFR) at specific events across the region following its successful deployment earlier this year at Holyhead Port.
Working with colleagues from South Wales Police the technology will be used to keep the public safe.
Chief Superintendent Mark Williams North Wales Police’s head of operational support services, said, “Our primary aims in using this technology are to keep the public safe and to help us identify serious offenders who pose a significant risk to our communities.”
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Justice
Julie Lennard, who has been chief executive officer at the DVLA since 2018, is expected to take up her role as Director General and Chief Operating Officer on November 25.
Stephen Parkinson, Director of Public Prosecutions, said: “Julie brings a wealth of valuable skills and experience to the CPS – not least her work to successfully lead the digital and business transformation of the DVLA.
“She has also transformed the way customers interact with the organisation with some truly impressive results. I am very much looking forward to welcoming Julie to our executive team in the autumn.”
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Police Finances
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has called on the county’s MPs to support his campaign for fairer police funding.
PCC Marc Jones and Chief Constable Paul Gibson met with all eight Lincolnshire MPs in Westminster on Tuesday for a briefing on the issue.
During the meeting, the MPs agreed to raise the matter with the newly-appointed policing minister Dame Diana Johnson, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
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Justice
Thousands of prisoners stuck on indefinite sentences should be resentenced, a bill introduced to the House of Lords has proposed.
It comes as the prison population hit record levels after the August riots. Resentencing these prisoners could cut prison overcrowding by a third and free up the equivalent of four prisons, according to analysis by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.
The bill, which was introduced on Wednesday, provides a framework to resentence prisoners still serving indeterminate imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences. It proposes establishing an expert committee with a judiciary member to advise on the practical implementation.
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Prisons
The prisons watchdog has warned that “risky” criminals will be among nearly 2,000 offenders released next week under the government’s early release scheme.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, expressed concerns that the authorities lack the “right levels of preparation” to deal with the mass release of prisoners next week.
He said that he knew of one prison where 80 prisoners are due to be released on Tuesday, saying: “Certain railway stations, I suspect, will be very busy with people who are coming to the end of their sentences.”
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Prisons
The UK government’s plan to free up prison spaces for at least 18 months with next week’s launch of the early release scheme is doomed to fail because cells are being filled by rioters, the prison governors’ leader has said.
Tom Wheatley, the president of the Prison Governors’ Association, said the lord chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, “will be lucky to get 12 months before we are full again” after charges against hundreds of people for their role in the recent disorder.
Wheatley, whose organisation represents 95% of governors in England and Wales, has urged the government to urgently consider further measures to reduce the prison population or build new cells at pace if they are to avoid another overcrowding crisis next summer.
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Recruitment and Retention
Figures obtained by Scotland’s justice and social affairs magazine 1919 show that 945 officers are coming up for retirement within the next year, six per cent of the total.
On top of this, 656 officers (four per cent of the total) are currently on long-term sick leave, with a further 2,183 (13 per cent of the total) on modified duties, which usually applies to those recovering from an illness or injury.
Taken together, this means that almost a quarter of Police Scotland officers are either eligible to retire by next summer, are off sick or unable to be deployed.
The figures, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, follow official statistics showing that the overall police headcount has fallen to 16,207, its lowest level since 2007.
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Police and Crime General
Former Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner and National Police Chief’s Council Lead for Counter-Terrorism Policing Neil Basu QPM is one of the country’s most outspoken former senior cops; in the first of a three-part interview series with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, he called on the new Government to “bin the 43-force model”, argued that the police and crime commissioner (PCC) model has proven a “disaster”, and talked about the “embarrassing deficit” in leadership training for future top cops.
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Police Demand
More than 200 people a day are falling victim to phone or bag snatch thefts in England and Wales, more than double the rate of last year and the highest number for a decade, the Home Office has revealed.
Ministers have summoned tech and phone firms to a summit to urge them to commit to “design out” mobile phone robbery in an attempt to crack down on the surge in thefts.
Diana Johnson, the policing minister, said she wanted firms to ensure that any stolen phones could be quickly, easily and permanently disabled to prevent them being re-registered for sale on the second-hand market.
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Police and Crime General
Yvette Cooper has announced a "rapid review of extremism" following the violent disorder in towns and cities throughout the UK earlier this summer.
Announcing the review, the home secretary also accused the rioters, who took to the streets after the fatal stabbings of three young girls in Southport, of "hijacking grief".
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Prisons
Some serious offenders will be eligible for early release under a scheme to free up prison space in England and Wales, the Ministry of Justice has admitted, despite saying previously they would not qualify.
The MoJ has confirmed that prisoners who have completed a sentence for a serious crime and are now serving a consecutive sentence for a lesser one would be allowed to leave prison earlier than planned.
Officials said prisoners serving a sentence for a less serious crime could leave after completing 40% of it, even if that sentence immediately followed one for a more serious crime.
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Recruitment and Retention
The figure is 9% up on the previous year and has increased by 130% since the first Police Oracle survey 11 years ago. Claire Sweeting and Minia Bennie report.
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Police Demand
This is a jump from the 193 incidents recorded during the 2021 championships, which the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said is due in part to its improved ability to record data.
A national policing strategy to help forces target serial domestic abusers during the Euros football tournament was launched in June this year.
The strategy was produced by the UK’s Football Policing Unit and aimed to equip forces with a proactive, multi-agency approach to safeguard victims and target perpetrators of domestic abuse.
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Police Demand
Shoplifting and anti-social behaviour will be among the issues targeted by new town centre police teams, a force says.
West Mercia Police said the officers would work closely with businesses in 10 places across Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
The teams will be seen in Evesham, Hereford, Kidderminster, Leominster, Oswestry, Redditch, Ross-on-Wye, Shrewsbury, Telford and Worcester from this week.
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Police and Crime General
Crime statistics can now be searched on a new data hub launched by a police and crime commissioner (PCC).
Thames Valley PCC Matthew Barber funded the hub, which will be updated every quarter and broken down into local council areas as well as crime type.
The initiative is designed to improve the accessibility and availability of local crime data.
Mr Barber said the data would help him hold Thames Valley Police accountable, as well as for the public to hold him accountable.
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Police and Crime General
Yvette Cooper is facing a legal challenge over plans to strengthen hate-crime laws in order to crack down on anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse.
Free-speech campaigners have warned they will take the Home Secretary to court if she reverses the previous Tory government’s decision to water down the rules on recording hate speech that fell short of criminality.
Ms Cooper is said to be committed to reversing the Tories’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of non-crime hate incidents in relation to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia so they can be logged by police.
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Justice
Dog attacks have continued to rise despite a ban on the XL bully breed, exclusive figures obtained by The Independent reveal. Campaign groups have slammed the “knee-jerk” policy while demanding an overhaul of legislation by the new Labour government.
Under a change to the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 last year, on 1 February it became illegal to own an XL bully without a certificate of exemption.
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Police Demand
Police chiefs believe that a new centralised police unit set up this year is starting to “turn the tide” against prolific shoplifters who are used by organised crime groups to steal goods en masse.
The Operation Opal team, which collects CCTV, crime reports and other evidence from all 43 police forces in England and Wales, has identified 152 prolific people involved in organised retail crime in the first three months of the operation.
Among them was a Romanian man who arrived in the UK last year and within his first 12 months stole £60,000 worth of products from Boots stores across England, Wales and Scotland.
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Police and Crime General
Police are using lorry cabs to catch drivers using their phones behind the wheel.
The unmarked specialist tractor unit, one of three in the country, accompanies patrols to spot distracted drivers from above or alongside them, in HGVs.
Operation Tramline, which is being carried out by forces across the country in partnership with National Highways, has stopped more than 42,500 vehicles since its launch in 2015.
Technology within the cab reads surrounding registration plates at a rapid pace, determining whether a car’s insurance, tax records and MOT certificate are up to date.
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Technology
About nine months ago while researching a story, I found myself added to a large Telegram channel which was focused on selling drugs.
I was then added to one about hacking and then one about stolen credit cards.
I realised my Telegram settings had made it possible for people to add me to their channels without me doing anything. I kept the settings the same to see what would happen.
Within a few months, I had been added to 82 different groups.
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Justice
He rose through the ranks to become one of Britain’s most senior policemen, and is now responsible for inspecting all of the country’s forces. But Andy Cooke can’t remember exactly when he decided to become an officer, or the reasons why. He thinks he must have fixed on his future career by the age of nine or 10 even though none of his relatives were in uniform, with his father working in a Ford factory and his mum as a teacher.
Little could he have imagined, then, the responsibility he would eventually take on as HM chief inspector of constabulary and the perfect storm that would be facing forces across the country at the time. After several years of plummeting prosecution rates and scandals over predatory officers and the handling of bogus allegations about VIP paedophiles, this summer has seen police forces blindsided by both a prisons crisis and the worst rioting seen since 2011.
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Police Finances
Homeowners and businesses affected by the recent disorder in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough are being encouraged to seek compensation by Cleveland’s Police and Crime Commissioner.
Matt Storey is encouraging those who suffered loss or damage to their property, including cars, homes or businesses, to contact their insurance companies.
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Prisons
The prison population of England and Wales has hit a record high after rising by nearly 1,000 in four weeks.
The sharp increase is believed to have been driven by the number of jail sentences handed to those who took part in recent riots.
A total of 88,350 people were in prison as of 30 August, Ministry of Justice figures show. This is up 116 from 88,234 a week ago and an increase of 988 from 87,362 on 2 August.
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Prisons
There are reportedly only 100 spaces left in male prisons across England and Wales, marking a critical shortage. Government sources attribute this to an expected increase in demand over the bank holiday weekend due to large-scale events, although it highlights the broader issue of insufficient prison capacity.
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Economy & Public Finance
Pat McFadden, a Cabinet Office Minister, has warned of more “economic pain” to come as the Government prepares to further restrict public spending, it is reported. Decisions such as the restricting of child benefit and the winter fuel allowance were unlikely to be reversed, McFadden said.
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Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police has urged the public to come forward if they can help prevent any further violence at this year's Notting Hill Carnival.
The force said the annual event in west London celebrating Caribbean culture was "marred by unacceptable violence" on Sunday after three people were stabbed, only "narrowly avoiding a fatality".
One of the victims - a 32-year-old woman who remains in a critical condition in hospital - had been attending with her young child on what was supposed to be the "family day" of the celebrations, police said.
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Prisons
There are fewer than 100 available spaces left across the male prison estate in England and Wales, the BBC understands.
Sources working across the penal system have said the bank holiday weekend created several challenges, with more arrests due to various festivals taking place, and inmates not released on Monday as they usually would be.
However, they said more people were scheduled to be released in the coming days, which should create more space.
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Economy & Public Finance
Sir Keir Starmer will use a speech tomorrow to warn it will take a decade to fix the challenges facing the country. It comes as ministers are braced for further cuts ahead of the Budget on October 30 as sticking to a 1 per cent increase in public spending will lead to a cut in some Whitehall departments. It is reported that those affected have already been tasked to find savings.
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Fire
The UK’s fire and rescue services have called for statutory duties to respond to extreme weather events in England.
The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) said a legal duty would help fire and rescue services provide a ‘coordinated and effective’ response to increasing risks amid the climate emergency.
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Police and Crime General
An amnesty and compensation scheme for people in England and Wales who possess zombie-style knives and machetes is starting ahead of the weapons being banned next month.
New legislation will close a loophole and make it an imprisonable offence to own, make, transport or sell a wide range of what are called ‘statement’ knives favoured by criminal gangs.
People who currently legally possess such knives can hand them in to police stations without fear of prosecution and, in some cases, claim compensation.
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Police Demand
Police officers have almost entirely ceased punishing shoplifters despite the number of offences soaring to record levels, analysis of official figures reveals.
Insiders fear the almost total lack of enforcement is encouraging further criminal behaviour, with thieves feeling as though they will never be held responsible for their offences.
In the year to March this year just 431 shoplifters were handed fixed penalty notices, the lowest form of punishment used for theft of goods valued at under £100. This represents a 98 per cent drop from a decade ago, when 19,419 were issued. The majority of police forces did not issue a single penalty for shoplifting over the last year.
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Police and Crime General
Social media users who stirred up racial hatred during the riots should not be jailed, the Church of England’s bishop for prisons has said.
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Rachel Treweek, said sending offenders to prison was “foolish” because it was unlikely to lead to rehabilitation, with community sentences more likely to make them change their ways.
At least four people have been jailed for offences related to inciting racial hatred or violence online, including a 53-year-old “keyboard warrior” who said on Facebook that mosques should be “blown up with the adults in it”.
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Police Finances
More than 1,300 people had their say on proposed policing priorities for a county over the next few years.
Darryl Preston, the Conservative police and crime commissioner (PCC) for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, set out his draft policies in a survey completed by people in July and August.
His priorities included clamping down on crime and anti-social behaviour and supporting victims of crime and witnesses.
The Police and Crime Plan is expected to be published later this year.
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Recruitment and Retention
New figures show 30 serving Thames Valley Police (TVP) officers or staff were sacked for sexual misconduct over a period of nearly four and a half years.
An updated report by the force showed 11 rape accusations were made against employees from February 2020 until the end of June, including four this year.
TVP released the most recent report, external earlier this month after the first was published in the spring.
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Technology
The National Crime Agency has warned international cybercriminals that it could seek to extradite them as part of a crackdown to tackle an alarming rise in the numbers of young people being targeted for sextortion.
The agency said the gangs, often based in west Africa, were “not safe from prosecution in our country” and that it would seek justice for all victims of the crime.
In cases of sextortion, teenagers are tricked online into sending intimate pictures of themselves to fraudsters who then demand money and threaten to share the material with others.
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Justice
Betsy Stanko, who helped create a new operating model for police when it comes to investigating rape, said it’s “frustrating” that the same urgency hasn’t been adopted for cases of violence against women.
A report into Operation Soteria - which was introduced last summer - has found a number of areas are preventing forces from making quick progress.
In nearly all police forces inspected, half of the investigators working on rape cases were found to not be fully qualified and are still in training.
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Recruitment and Retention
A former Police Scotland officer “who inflicted unimaginable trauma” upon three women through a campaign of controlling, violent and sexual abuse has been jailed.
Christopher Ferguson, 31, was found guilty of nine charges – including two counts of voyeurism – on June 13 following a trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court, Scotland’s prosecution service said.
He was jailed for three years and nine months at the same court on Wednesday, and was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
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Justice
A controversial decision to refuse refunds to wrongly convicted prisoners who were charged for bed and board while in jail was made in part to save money, the Guardian has learned.
The move, which has prompted dismay among ex-prisoners who had tens of thousands of pounds stripped from compensation money to cover “living expenses” while in jail, was justified on the basis that ministers could not retrospectively change policy decisions.
However, a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) letter to some former prisoners, seen by the Guardian, said another consideration was avoiding the “significant administrative and other financial costs” if other victims of miscarriages of justice made similar claims.
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Recruitment and Retention
A black Metropolitan Police officer has described being treated like “an animal” by some of his white colleagues and accused the force of handing down “pathetic punishments” to those who have made racist comments.
He is one of 10 black and ethnic minority officers who told the BBC that racism is getting worse in Britain’s largest police force.
“They keep putting you down, putting you down until you break and you feel nothing, no confidence, nothing,” he said.
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Police Finances
Far-right riots have pushed Britain’s prisons to breaking point as the government triggers emergency measures to ease overcrowding.
Experts fear hard-won capacity gained by releasing prisoners early has “rapidly evaporated” after at least 677 suspected rioters were charged following widespread disorder.
In Merseyside – where clashes first erupted following the killing of three schoolgirls last month – there were rumoured to be just two prison spaces left at the weekend after rioters were hauled before the courts in fast-tracked hearings.
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Police Finances
Economist Tim Leunig – who was behind the Covid furlough scheme – has claimed that “council tax and stamp duty are unfair and unpopular” and should be abolished, instead being replaced with a more proportional scheme. In a paper for the Onward thinktank, Leunig proposes a different system to council tax that would introduce a levy on home values up to £500,000.
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Recruitment and Retention
An employment tribunal has found that Thames Valley Police discriminated against three white police officers because of their race when appointing an officer to a priority crime team.
Thames Valley’s police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber said this was “clearly unacceptable” and will conduct a full review into force processes to “ensure this cannot happen in the future”.
The tribunal judge ruled that the failure to consider three officers for promotion because of their race was unlawful.
The three officers, Detective Inspector Phillip Turner-Robson, Inspector Graham Horton and Custody Inspector Kirsteen Bishop, who had each served with the force for between 19 and 26 years, brought the discrimination claim against Thames Valley Police arguing that they had been unfairly disadvantaged because they were white British.
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Technology
Amid concerns that the recent riots in the UK were fuelled by misinformation spread on social media, some have questioned whether the Online Safety Act passed last year needs to be revisited; however, Associate Professor Dr Olivia Brown and Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Alicia Cork of the University of Bath argue that with parts of the Act not due to come into effect until late 2024, the effectiveness of the legislation won’t be fully understood until it has been tested in another situation like the recent riots.
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Recruitment and Retention
Frontline police officers and detectives routinely show courage when confronting the violent, dangerous and heinous. So you’d think police chiefs might be willing to really ask themselves whether their force is as impartial as many of them claim.
Putting aside relatively complex operational matters, such as the policing of protests and the response to crime itself, perhaps we can just examine the track record of the administration in some forces.
In just the last five years, British policing has plenty of examples of veering off course.
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Police and Crime General
The government will establish a unit dedicated to preventing violent crime among young people to give teenagers the best start in life, the home secretary has announced.
The “young futures” unit will include setting up youth hubs and identifying those most at risk of being drawn into violence, exploitation, crime and anti-social behaviour.
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK's inflation rate has risen for the first time this year, official figures show. It means overall prices rose by 2.2 per cent in the year to July, up from 2 per cent in June.
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Justice
A woman has received £35,000 in compensation after her rape case was dropped amid claims she could have had an episode of “sexsomnia”.
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott, 32, contacted police in 2017, telling them she thought she had been raped while asleep. She said she had woken up half-naked, finding her necklace broken on the floor.
But charges were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) days before a trial was due to begin after lawyers for the alleged perpetrator claimed Jade had sexsomnia - a medically recognised, but rare, sleep disorder that causes a person to engage in sexual acts while asleep.
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Police and Crime General
Police have sent a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service following an incident at Manchester Airport in which three officers were injured and a man kicked by a police officer.
Muhammad Fahir Amaaz was struck by a firearms officer after he and his brother Amaad Amaaz were arrested following a violent clash with police on 23 July.
Four men held in connection with the incident - including Mr Fahir Amaaz - remain on police bail.
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Police and Crime General
A police force previously under special measures has made "significant efforts" to improve, but some concerns remain, say inspectors.
Wiltshire Police came out of special measures in May, having been placed in them for multiple failings.
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services said the force had made progress, but was still concerned about how it investigates crime and protects the vulnerable.
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Police and Crime General
Britain’s biggest police force is still failing to protect women and girls, two years after being put into special measures following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
An official inspection uncovered “serious concerns” about how the Metropolitan Police investigates crime, including evidence that victims are being put at risk by the Met’s failure to “safely manage” sex offenders and domestic abusers.
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) cited examples of officers giving sex offenders advance notice of home visits, allowing them to conceal mobile phones and laptops they may be banned from possessing. Official guidance states that visits should be unannounced.
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Police and Crime General
A grieving mother's road safety campaign has received the backing of her police and crime commissioner.
Sharlorna Warner's eight-month-old son Zackary and sister Karlene Warner, 30, were killed by speeding drunk driver Darryl Anderson in a crash on the A1(M) in County Durham in May.
Zachary's mum launched a campaign for lifelong driving bans for drink and drug drivers after Anderson was jailed for 17 years.
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Economy & Public Finance
Cabinet ministers have reportedly been told to search for cost-cutting reforms and prepare for difficult decisions over spending, as the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her team formally begin the process of compiling a review of public spending.
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Police Demand
Police officers remain on high alert amid concerns there will be further violence and disorder this weekend. The start of the football season has sparked fears of further riots, with reports police are considering football banning orders after investigations suggested a link between rioters and football hooligan groups.
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Police Demand
Police investigating the rioting led by the far right have said they have made more than 700 arrests for alleged offences and promised “hundreds” more to come.
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Police and Crime General
King Charles has sent his “heartfelt thanks” to the police for restoring order after speaking to Keir Starmer and senior officers following the week of unrest across the UK.
The king and the prime minister held a phone call on Friday evening, Buckingham Palace said. Gavin Stephens, a chief constable and chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the UK gold commander Ben Harrington, chief constable of Essex police, held a separate joint call with the king.
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Police and Crime General
Despite Keir Starmer’s professed determination to mete out swift and sure justice to those responsible for the wave of violence across the UK, a leading think tank has argued that the UK justice system is not up to the challenge presented by the disorder.
Writing today for the Institute of Government, Cassia Rowland argues that “The hangover of austerity and court backlogs are hindering the government’s response to this summer’s violence.”
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Police Demand
Organised crime groups have been targeting empty shops and pubs in town centres to grow cannabis on an industrial scale, say police bosses.
Over the last year, raids have been carried out in dozens of properties, from an old toy shop in Ayr, Scotland, to a former bank in Welshpool, Powys.
Vacant restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, bingo halls and office buildings have all been used to grow the drug, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, external.
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Economy & Public Finance
Ministers will be ordered to come up with ways to make major savings in the coming months as part of Rachel Reeves’ Budget, it is reported. The Chancellor has claimed to have discovered a £22 billion hole in the public finances for this year which must be filled by cuts, higher taxes or more government borrowing, with the Ministry of Defence and Department for Transport among the Whitehall departments which have already begun the process of cutting costs.
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Police Finances
Council tax arrears have soared to £6bn a year, a sign that the collection process is ‘failing local authorities and taxpayers alike’, according to a report published today.
The total has leapt from about £2.5bn a decade ago, according to the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).
The think-tank’s report calls for a ‘more proportionate’ approach to debt collection, with a clearer distinction between those who cannot pay and those who refuse to.
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Justice
Ministers are preparing an extra 500 prison places to manage an influx of people expected to be held on remand next month, the Ministry of Justice said. More than 400 people have been arrested since the start of violence in parts of the UK last week.
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Police Finances
A Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has launched a judicial review against the Home Office over the way it calculates how much money is allocated to police forces.
Lincolnshire PCC Marc Jones has repeatedly claimed the force is one of the worst funded in the country per resident, saying the current formula relies on "outdated" population statistics and metrics.
During a regional police and crime panel meeting on Friday, he said: “The papers are lodged with the courts and the Home Office has until 12 August to respond to the paperwork that I’ve submitted."
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Police Demand
The roll-out of the Immediate Justice scheme has been cancelled by the Government as it cuts back on spending, it is reported. The scheme, which was launched as a pilot in 16 areas last year, saw those found committing anti-social behaviour made to repair the damage they inflicted on victims and communities.
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Police and Crime General
The Police and Crime Commissioner in West Mercia has discussed how policing cuts are to be expected this year, with the government not funding officers’ pay increases.
Last week, the Chancellor outlined how the government will accept the recommendations of independent public sector Pay Review Bodies, meaning that police officers will be given a pay increase of 4.75%. Announcing the pay rises, the Chancellor said:
“That is the right decision for the people who work in and most importantly the people who use our public services.
“Giving hardworking staff the pay rise they deserve, while ensuring we can recruit and retain the people we need.”
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
A new report from the Institute for Government has outlined how the approach to recent spending reviews is not capable of delivering on the government’s goals.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The NFU has called for action after the cost of rural crime in the UK rose to an estimated £52.8m, an increase of 4.3% from 2022 according to new figures from NFU Mutual.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England's governor said a decision to cut interest rates is "an important moment in time" but warned people not to expect a sharp fall in the coming months. Rates were lowered to 5 per cent from 5.25 per cent on Thursday, marking the first cut since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
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Police Finances
The government has revealed a new backstop date for all outstanding external audits up to and including the financial year 2022-23.
In a written statement this morning, local government minister Jim McMahon revealed that these external audits must be published by 13 December.
The deadline for financial year 2023-24 will be two months later on 28 February 2025.
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Economy & Public Finance
Chancellor savages previous administration’s fiscal management, pledging: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”
[ more...]
Police Finances
Both the PRRB and SSRB recommended a consolidated increase of 4.75% to all police officer ranks and pay points with effect from 1 September 2024. The Government is accepting the recommendation in full. The Home Office will provide £175m additional funding in 2024-25 to forces to help with the cost of the pay increase.
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Police Finances
More money needs to be given to police forces across multiple years in order to rebuild public trust, Wiltshire's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has said.
The county's PCC Philip Wilkinson added more work needs to be done to ensure victims of crime get the service they deserve across "all levels of policing".
Wiltshire Police came out of special measures in May after being found to be failing in most areas, including how it protects the vulnerable.
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Economy & Public Finance
The chancellor is set to announce immediate cuts worth billions of pounds, aimed at plugging a gap in the public finances, when she addresses Parliament on Monday.
Rachel Reeves’ plans are expected to include the cancellation of some road and rail projects, a reduction in spending on external consultants and a drive to cut public sector waste.
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Police Finances
The Times has compiled data to chart the obstacles facing the NHS, criminal justice and local government ahead of a speech from the Chancellor later today which will outline a “black hole” in public services. Data from local government shows a 22 per cent reduction in real terms spending power from 2010 and rising spending on statutory services.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Government is expected to agree to above-inflation pay rises for public sector workers in the coming days, amid concerns over the costs of not settling, Sky News understands. Independent pay review bodies have already recommended the above-inflation figure to ministers for teachers and nurses of about 5.5 per cent to keep them in line with increases in the private sector, reports have suggested.
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Economy & Public Finance
An audit of public spending pressures will see claims of a "black hole" worth tens of billions of pounds by the new government. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she would give a statement to Parliament on Monday showing “honesty” about the scale of the challenge faced by the new Labour government.
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said it was not credible that the government had now looked at the books and found problems to be more severe than expected, given how many organisations had pointed out that most public services were now performing "considerably worse" than they were pre-Covid.
While the BBC understands there will be no tax policy announcements on Monday, the implication of the audit is that the Treasury will spend the summer trying to find extra savings, or extra taxation revenue, to fill this “black hole”. A more optimistic economic outlook from the independent forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility would also help improve some tricky trade-offs.
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Police Finances
The Government’s net zero and economic growth ambitions could be ‘derailed by a lack of clarity’ on decarbonising older buildings, a report has argued.
The London Property Alliance (LPA) said there was little guidance for local authorities on how to weigh up the relative economic, social and environmental impacts of retrofit and redevelopment schemes.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Councils in the south west of England that have increased council tax on second homes are missing out on £55m of income due to the ‘broken’ business rates system, real estate experts warn.
Around 150 local authorities have indicated they plan to charge second homeowners double or triple council tax to discourage second home ownership during a housing crisis.
However, Colliers has found that this policy is backfiring because many homeowners have responded by ‘flipping’ their properties, so they are classed as small businesses.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Violence against women and girls related crime rose by almost 40 per cent between 2018 and 2023. A report commissioned by the National Police Chiefs' Council and the College of Policing estimated at least one in every 12 women - more than two million - will be a victim of VAWG crimes every year.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police should get a pay rise of more than double the rate of inflation, ministers have been advised – piling pressure on Rachel Reeves to unleash spending despite squeezed public finances.
The police remuneration review body is understood to have recommended the 150,000 officers in England and Wales should receive pay rises of just under 5 per cent.
The recommendation is lower than the 5.5 per cent put forward for nurses and teachers by their pay review bodies but reflects police officers’ higher salary awards in the past two years.
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Police Demand
Knife crime is rising more rapidly in rural counties and market towns than in cities, a study has found.
Although most of the police forces in the top 10 included large inner city areas, the study found offences were soaring at an alarming rate outside of urban regions.
[ more...]
Police Finances
In response to the government's policing and criminal justice legislative plans as laid out in the King's Speech, APCC Chair Donna Jones said the following on behalf of Police and Crime Commissioners:
“As Chair of the APCC I appreciate the focus on crime and the criminal justice system in this King’s Speech, as well as on supporting victims.
“The announcement of a Crime and Policing Bill that promises to give police greater powers to deal with antisocial behaviour and increase the visibility of officers and Police Community Support Officers is welcome. Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) act on behalf of the public and we know the terrible harm caused by antisocial behaviour and crimes that blight their neighbourhoods. PCCs support plans to ban dangerous knives and other lethal weapons which are too easily available to buy, and to act against those who exploit children for criminal purposes.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Abandoned Conservative policies for fixing local government finance should remain on the table, the new chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) has said.
While he suggested Labour was unlikely to take on plans for the long-promised fair funding review and business rates retention as they stand, Owen Mapley said: ‘I don't think we have the luxury of ignoring any of the options.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation held steady in June as price rises across the country stayed at the target level for the second month running. Inflation rose at 2 per cent in the year to June, partly driven by hotel prices going up, according to the latest official figures.
[ more...]
Justice
Crown court backlogs in Kent are causing victims to walk away from prosecutions, according to the county's police and crime commissioner.
Matthew Scott says the increased number of charges, insufficient court capacity and a shortage of staff are causing significant delays.
One victim, who had to wait five years from the time his abuser was charged to eventually being jailed, says the justice system "is in disarray", causing "turmoil" for survivors and their families.
[ more...]
Justice
Rishi Sunak was warned by senior civil servants a week before he called the election that he was at risk of breaching his legal responsibilities if he failed to take action over the prison overcrowding crisis, a leaked document reveals.
The advice, sent to the former prime minister on 15 May, said that failing to make an urgent decision on prison capacity would mean the criminal justice system in England and Wales reaching the point of “critical failure”.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Government has put fiscal stability in the form of a Budget Responsibility Bill at the heart of the King's Speech.
The new bill will ensure a beefed-up role for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The OBR will be handed responsibility under the bill for independently assessing all significant tax and spending changes.
[ more...]
Justice
Drug dealers are set to be released up to 18 months early from prison under Labour’s scheme to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis.
Possession of drugs with intent to supply class A drugs such as cocaine and heroin carries a maximum penalty of 16 years in jail.
Under the current rules, any drug dealer convicted of intent to supply can expect to be automatically released from jail halfway through their sentence with the remainder spent on licence in the community.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Merseyside Police said latest figures showed serious violence was down almost 48% in the areas targeted and anti-social behaviour was down more than 18%.
Hotspot policing sees uniformed officers and PCSO's undertake high visibility foot patrols in targeted areas.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Spiking a drink is to be made a standalone offence under a new law to be announced in the King’s Speech on Wednesday.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, and Dame Diana Johnson, the new policing minister, believe the move will help improve the investigation, prosecution and reporting of cases.
Currently, spiking can be prosecuted as an assault or under the Offences Against the Person Act, but it is not a specific offence.
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Justice
Britain’s biggest police force has failed to identify a suspect in a single reported burglary in 166 neighbourhoods in the past three years, research has revealed.
Channel 4 Dispatches also found the Met failed to find a suspect in a single robbery, bike theft or vehicle crime in those areas over the same period.
Programme makers commissioned researchers to map police data from 2021 to 2023 for offences where no suspect had been found, focusing on areas with at least 50 unsolved crimes.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Sir Keir Starmer will force police officers to investigate shoplifting offences under £200 as part of a crackdown on crime in the King’s Speech.
A new Crime Bill will reverse a so-called “shoplifters’ charter” introduced in 2014, under which the theft of goods under £200 is considered “low value”, The Telegraph understands.
It will also close loopholes which allow the sale of ninja swords and samurai swords, the type of weapon which was used to kill 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin in London earlier this year.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall has called for additional summer funding to tackle growing anti-social behaviour.
Alison Hernandez previously called for £17m from the government in 2019 to pay for the cost of policing summer visitors over three years.
At the same time the force was being given 8p per person, per day less than the England and Wales average in core funding.
The latest figures show that gap increasing to 10p per person per day.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Thousands of prisoners will be released early at the start of September, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced, after warning of the "total collapse" of the prison system and a "total breakdown of law and order" without urgent action to ease prison overcrowding. Under the plan, some prisoners will be released after they have served 40 per cent of their sentence in England and Wales, rather than the current 50 per cent.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Neil Basu is the leading candidate to head the home secretary’s new border security command, which will aim to cut the number of migrants crossing the Channel
[ more...]
Justice
The Home Secretary has said there is no “quick fix” to tackling overcrowding in jails, as the new Labour Government considers releasing more prisoners early.
Yvette Cooper accused the Conservatives of leaving behind a “legacy” of “chaos” and crisis in prisons as ministers are reportedly deciding whether to free inmates after less than half of their sentence to ease pressure on cell space.
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Economy & Public Finance
In his first speech outside Downing Street as Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer cautioned that, despite Labour's parliamentary majority, his aim of "rebuilding" Britain "will take a while". Sir Keir has confirmed his new cabinet - which will meet for the first time today - with Angela Rayner appointed as Levelling Up Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Wes Streeting as Health and Social Care Secretary and Ed Milliband named Energy Secretary
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
New Chancellor Rachel Reeves has warned that the state of the economy means "there is not a lot of money there" for Labour to use to boost public service spending. Ms Reeves said that reform of the planning system was "front and centre" of Labour's plan to grow the economy. It is reported that Sue Gray, the PM’s Chief of Staff, has compiled a list of immediate issues facing the new government.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Drug dealers who exploit children will face punishment under a new law as part of a crackdown on crime planned by the new Labour government.
The king’s speech, due on 17 July, is expected to outline measures including a new offence of child criminal exploitation, Labour sources confirmed, among a series of new laws and reforms across the policing and justice system.
But despite Labour’s pledge to prioritise law and order and clamp down on antisocial behaviour, police chiefs have been told there is no prospect of new money for at least the first two to three years of the new government, the Guardian understands. Law enforcement leaders, who collectively have a £18bn budget, claim they face a shortfall of £3.2bn.
[ more...]
Justice
Sir Keir Starmer is expected to authorise emergency measures this week to automatically release criminals less than halfway through their sentence in an attempt to tackle the prisons crisis.
There are fewer than 700 spaces left in men’s jails in England and Wales, The Times has been told, before a critical week in the prisons overcrowding crisis.
[ more...]
Justice
Britain has “too many prisoners and not enough prisons”, Sir Keir Starmer said, as he suggested it was “impossible” to prevent more offenders from being released early.
The prime minister said the prison overcrowding crisis was another part of the system that was “broken”, along with the NHS, as he vowed to confront the problems left behind by the Conservatives with “raw honesty”.
Holding his first Downing Street press conference, Starmer also said there were no “overnight” fixes but suggested that longer term, prisoner numbers could be curbed and policies focused on early intervention for youths and rehabilitation to reduce reoffending.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Hundreds of police officers will be deployed across Europe to stop people smugglers as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s new UK Border Security Command.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced on Sunday the first steps in setting up the command by kickstarting the search from Monday for a former police, military or intelligence chief to head it.
It will also see up to 1,000 extra officers recruited by the National Crime Agency (NCA), Border Force and MI5 specifically to target smuggling gangs.
[ more...]
Police Finances
CIPFA LASAAC has announced it is changing its approach to the huge backlog of English local authority audits, because the planned ‘backstop’ system for outstanding audits has been disrupted by the general election.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Sir Keir Starmer has led the Labour Party to a landslide General Election victory and will take over as the UK's Prime Minister. Labour crossed the line for a Parliamentary majority when than 150 seats were still to declare. Sir Keir said: "Today, we start the next chapter, begin the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country." Rishi Sunak said the British people had delivered a "sobering verdict" with the Conservatives set for its worst electoral result in history. The Lib Dems have increased its number of MPs to record levels with party leader Sir Ed Davey declaring the result as its "best ever". The Green Party has also increased its number of MPs.
[ more...]
Police Finances
An incoming government may have to put convicted offenders under house arrest rather than jailing them because prisons are running out of spaces, a leading think tank has warned.
The Institute for Government (IfG) said the new ministers would have to introduce emergency measures within weeks or even days which would “increase the risk to the public” but were necessary because of the “real danger” of having no prison spaces for jailed criminals.
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Police Demand
One of Sir Keir Starmer’s first laws will be a crime and policing bill that will overhaul police standards, create a range of new criminal offences and scrap rules that allow shoplifters to escape punishment if stolen goods are worth less than £200.
Yvette Cooper, who is expected to be appointed home secretary on Friday if Labour wins the election, said that she would force the Home Office to take a more “active” approach to crime and policing.
The legislation, which would be introduced in Labour’s first King’s Speech on July 17, would set up a new police performance and standards unit in the Home Office.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Britain’s next government is set to benefit from easing pressure on household finances after a slowdown in inflation in shops and a fall in fuel prices, but costs remain “too expensive” for many families. Figures from the British Retail Consortium show that annual UK shop price inflation slowed last month to 0.2 per cent, down from 0.6 per cent in May – the slowest pace since October 2021 – as retailers cut the prices of many of their key products, including butter and coffee.
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Police Demand
Young people are “crying out” for a return of youth clubs with three-quarters of 16- to 19-year-olds in England lacking ways to connect with youth workers, according to research from the National Youth Agency. More than half of people in their late teens are specifically calling for more youth work that offers “fun”, with older teenagers particularly hankering for more jollity and one in 10 said they have zero options to access youth work. Youth groups are urging the next government to inject up to £1 billion a year into services in England.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The economy grew by more than initially estimated in the first three months of 2024 as the UK emerged from recession, revised official figures show. Between January and March, the economy grew by 0.7 per cent the Office for National Statistics said. Figures released last month initially estimated growth had been 0.6 per cent.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Lincolnshire Police needs an additional £15m of government funding in order to deliver the service, the county's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has said.
Marc Jones, who was recently re-elected for a third term, has repeatedly claimed the force is one of the worst funded in the country per resident.
He has also called for the police funding formula to be updated, saying it is based on outdated population figures.
A Home Office spokesperson said Lincolnshire Police’s funding was set to be increased by up to £9.2m in 2024-25.
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Justice
The criminal justice system is close to collapse. Don’t take my word for it. “The entire criminal justice system stands on the precipice of failure,” warned the Prison Governors’ Association (PGA) this week, as it notified politicians that prisons in England and Wales are quite literally full. Meanwhile, two judges who ruled on legal aid cuts in February, concluded: “Unless there are significant injections of funding in the relatively near future, any prediction … that the system will arrive in due course at a point of collapse is not overly pessimistic.”
[ more...]
Justice
The police abandoned an investigation every 13 seconds last year without finding a suspect, according to research.
An analysis of Home Office statistics shows that more than 2.3 million crime investigations by police in England and Wales were closed unsolved last year. This amounts to more than four every minute, and nearly 6,500 every day.
The number of crime investigations dropped without a suspect being found increased by 30 per cent from two years ago – nearly 550,000 – while the proportion rose to just under 44 per cent in the year ending December 2023
[ more...]
Police Finances
Farmers and landowners say they are "at war" with countryside crime gangs and need more help from specialist rural police officers.
One farmer told the BBC he faced “constant warfare” against balaclava-clad thieves breaking into his farmyard and also against gangs of illegal hare-coursers.
A new report by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) warns that police forces in England and Wales that cover large rural areas are "in crisis" and need more funding to fight back against the organised gangs.
[ more...]
Justice
Jails will run out of space within days, putting the public at risk, the body representing prison governors in England and Wales is warning political leaders. The Prison Governors’ Association says police officers will be unable to detain people because there will be nowhere to put them.
[ more...]
Justice
The British criminal justice system is nearing collapse, plagued by backlogs, overcrowded prisons, budget cuts, and barrister strikes.
As highlighted in City A.M.’s first part of its coverage, the criminal justice system isn’t a priority in the General Election despite this crisis.
This indifference stems from a lack of understanding of the justice system’s mechanics and the misconception that it only affects “bad people.”
[ more...]
Justice
Within the past few weeks there have been stabbings in Bristol, Keynsham and Weston-super-Mare.
Between January to December in 2023, 1,485 incidents relating to knives or sharp objects were reported to Avon and Somerset Police, according to the Office of National Statistics. That works out to around four every day, and is an increase of 24% compared to the previous year.
So what would each political party do about the problem?
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Interest rates are expected to be held at 5.25 per cent for the seventh time in a row by the Bank of England on Thursday. Despite inflation hitting the central bank's target level, most economists have predicted rates, will not be cut. They believe the Bank will wait to see if inflation stays at 2 per cent in the coming months, with a first rate cut in the autumn now looking more likely than the summer.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Acid attacks and other crimes involving corrosive substances soared by 75% last year - but just 8% of offenders ended up in court, new data suggests.
The figures, obtained through freedom of information requests to all police forces in the UK, show 1,244 offences were recorded in 2023, up from 710 the previous year.
Of those, 454, or more than a third (36%) involved physical attacks, while 790, almost two thirds (64%), included threats of attacks, carrying corrosive substances or other serious crimes - such as rape or robbery - involving acids or alkalis.
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Justice
Prison governors have been warned that jails will be so overcrowded by the second week of July that they will struggle to accept any more inmates, plunging an incoming government into an immediate crisis.
The heads of jails in England and Wales were informed by HM Prison and Probation Service officials earlier this month that data pointed to an “operational capacity breaking point” only days after the 4 July general election.
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Justice
A dedicated police unit helped obtain 453 voluntary offence admissions from 76 offenders in 2023.
Suffolk Police's Operation Converter team works with individuals who have a history of offending.
It intervenes where an offender wishes to voluntarily admit further similar offences, and these are then taken into consideration during sentencing at court.
Det Insp Greg Moore, who leads the unit, said the main thing was "securing a resolution for the victim".
[ more...]
Police Finances
Armed robbers, drug dealers and violent offenders could be released from prison six months early under a scheme introduced this month to tackle the overcrowding crisis in jails.
Hundreds of criminals serving sentences of over four years will be released up to 180 days early to help ease the pressure on jails, which are projected to reach bursting point by the middle of July.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Inflation has reached the Bank of England's target for the first time in almost three years. Prices rose at 2 per cent in the year to May, down from 2.3 per cent the month before, official figures show.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Schools are facing a knife crime “emergency” with four attacks on children or teachers each week, The Independent can reveal.
It comes amid concerns knife crime has dropped down the political agenda in the general election as Labour and the Tories focus on each other’s tax plans and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK tries to push immigration to the forefront.
Campaigners and families of victims have accused the main political parties of silence on the issue, with knife crime and how to tackle it noticeably absent from the leaders’ debates and interviews.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A chief constable has said that between one and two police officers a day were being assaulted as they carried out their duties working for his service.
Chief Constable Nick Dean, the head of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, said his officers were regularly abused and spat on.
Mr Dean has been awarded the King’s Policing Medal (KPM), as part of the King’s Birthday Honours, following more than 30 years of service.
He said working in front-line services has changed over the course of his career, and police officers now face "unacceptable" levels of assaults.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police have warned of a potential rise in domestic abuse as England play Serbia in their first game of the Euro 2024 football championship on Sunday.
The Metropolitan Police said a study from Lancaster University found there was a 38 per cent increase in domestic violence incidents when England lost a game between 2002 and 2010, and a 26 per cent rise when they won.
Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for domestic abuse, said she wanted to make victims of domestic abuse aware of the support available to them during the tournament and encouraged anyone who suffered abuse to report it to police immediately.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy failed to grow in April after particularly wet weather put off shoppers and slowed down construction. The official data is what most economists had expected and comes after the fastest growth in two years from January to March, ending the recession from the final half of last year.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Fresh calls for tighter controls on the sale of machetes have been made by a group representing police officers after two 12-year-old boys were convicted of murdering a teenager.
Shawn Seesahai, 19, died in November after being set upon in an unprovoked attack on Stowlawn playing fields in East Park, Wolverhampton.
West Midlands Police Federation called for more measures around the marketing of machetes and other bladed instruments.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Davison discusses the history of women in policing, his personal connection to a pioneering female officer, and his journey to becoming a police officer.
He also shares his interests in heavy metal music, football, and gaming! Davison emphasizes the importance of integrity, doing the right thing, and looking after others as key characteristics of a police officer. He encourages individuals with diverse interests to consider a career in policing.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The West Midlands has become the knife crime capital of the UK with rates as much as a fifth higher than London.
The region overtook the capital in 2020/21, when the rate of knife crime was 18.3 per cent higher at 167 offences per 100,000 of the population to London’s rate of 137 per 100,000.
It has since risen to 180 offences per 100,000 of the population compared with London’s 165 per 100,000, making it 8.3 per cent higher than the capital.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Conservatives have launched their 2024 election manifesto. The document, external sets out what the party's plans would be, should it win the election on 4 July.
Here are some of the most eye-catching pledges.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The Conservatives have committed to recruiting an extra 8,000 new police officers over the next Parliament, funded through the removal of the student discount to the Immigration Health Surcharge, an increase in all visa fees of 25 per cent and a clampdown on tax avoidance.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Labour will reportedly promise not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT for five years if the party wins the general election. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves already said this week they will not put up the taxes, ahead of Labour's manifesto launch expected on Thursday, but Labour will take their pledge further and vow to cast a “triple lock” on the “big three” taxes over the course of the first term in power.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has pledged that if elected a Conservative government would not undertake a council tax revaluation.
Writing in a national newspaper, Hunt promised the Conservatives would not ‘increase the number of council tax bands, undertake an expensive council tax revaluation or cut council tax discounts’.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The Metropolitan Police is heading for its lowest staffing levels in a decade by March next year, commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has warned.
Britain's biggest police force has seen a shortfall partly due to inadequate funding and low recruitment, according to Sir Mark.
Plans to reform the force will have to slow down as the Met faces a budget hole of £400m in 2025-26, a document submitted to the London Policing Board said.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Duke of Sussex's High Court case against the Home Office is one of a number of high-profile legal battles he has launched in recent years.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Neither the Conservatives nor Labour are serious about reducing the level of national debt, the Institute of Fiscal Studies has said, accusing both parties of avoiding the harsh reality of spending cuts after the election.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Labour has pledged to deliver 14,000 new prison places to tackle the overcrowding crisis if it gets into government.
The party has announced plans to unblock the planning system in order to expand the prison estate and ease capacity.
Prisoners have been let out of jail early in recent months as part of emergency measures to tackle a chronic shortage of spaces.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Conservative Party is promising to recruit 8,000 additional police officers over the next three years if they win the General Election.
Under the plans, the new neighbourhood police officers would also be given increased powers to seize knives and recover stolen goods.
The policing uplift programme would partly be paid for by increasing visa fees and removing the student discount to the Immigration Health surcharge, the party said.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy will grow faster than expected this year and next, according to upgraded forecasts from the British Chambers of Commerce.
The BCC, a business and industry lobby group, said the economy would expand by 0.8 per cent this year, up from a forecast of 0.5 per cent, and by 1 per cent in 2025, compared with an earlier projection of 0.7 per cent.
The acceleration in growth comes after the economy performed better than expected at the start of the year, registering its fastest quarter of output growth since 2022 at 0.6 per cent. The UK briefly slipped into a technical recession at the end of 2023, but is now on course for a slight recovery where longer-term growth prospects “are unlikely to be strong”, said the BCC.
[ more...]
Justice
Rishi Sunak is to pledge the biggest overhaul of homicide laws in a generation to ensure tougher sentences for domestic abusers. The move could also lead to the creation of US-style first and second degree murder.
The Conservative Party manifesto will promise to increase from 15 to 25 years the minimum sentence for murders that take place in the home, The Times has been told.
It will also commit itself to a wider review to ensure tougher sentences are given to killers such as Valdo Calocane, who fatally stabbed three people in Nottingham last year. He was charged with murder but allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility. Two of the families of Calocane’s victims said the proposals for US-style murder classifications would be a “seismic, important change”.
[ more...]
Justice
The concept of coercive control has been recognised for more than 15 years, and coercive and controlling behaviour was introduced as a criminal offence in 2015; but research by Julia Pitman, justice policy, campaigns and research professional, highlighted key barriers the police face in recognising female offenders as victims of coercive control, including lack of officer skill and experience, and inadequate policy and guidance.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
As startling infringements on the independence of national public auditing authorities reflect a worrying global decline in democratic systems, INTOSAI and the OECD call for more hands on deck.
The auditor-general of Sierra Leone, Lara Taylor-Pearce, can lay claim to a formidable list of chartered accountancy and business management qualifications, a stellar and unblemished career of thirty-plus years in the private and public sectors and particularly in public financial management in Sierra Leone, and several national awards including the National Integrity Award and recognition as one of the country’s 50 most influential women.
At a global level, she has been a stalwart champion of auditor-general offices worldwide (collectively known as supreme audit institutions or SAIs). Within INTOSAI, the UN-associated organisation supporting SAIs around the globe, Taylor-Pearce has served as vice-chair of the governing board of the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) and as chair of AFROSAI-E.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Talk about a u-turn, and one that hasn’t quite settled in. Despite a monumental amendment in the Criminal Justice Bill that would have made attacking a shopworker a standalone offence, tabled by MP James Cleverly in April, Tory ministers have failed to keep their promise.
It was, in part, expected. That’s because the calling for a general election meant any legislation yet to be fully scrutinised would not become law unless it was passed in the so-called ‘wash-up’.
And with Rishi Sunak announcing a general election on 22 May before parliament was prorogued on 24 May, the wash-up period lasted a mere two days. With such limited time available, it meant bills more advanced in the parliamentary process made the cut.
So with the Criminal Justice Bill far from complete – with over 100 pages of amendments still left to debate – needless to say it wasn’t at the top of government’s list of priorities.
[ more...]
Technology
Portable knife scanners enabling police to detect weapons hidden on people at a distance are to be trialled on British streets.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, has said the Home Office is looking at versions of the technology developed by five different companies with a view to police officers trying it at knife crime hot spots by the end of 2024.
One model, already demonstrated to ministers and officials, uses radar imaging to detect weapons at a distance of 10ft. Developers say it can distinguish between knives and keys or mobile phones through people’s clothes.
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Police Finances
Police forces could be left defenceless because the monopoly supplier of Tasers is driving prices up so aggressively, policing leaders have warned.
US-based tech giant Axon, which has the only Home Office licence to supply Tasers, has the UK 'over a barrel' with its stranglehold over the market, a police and crime commissioner said.
And its latest model has proved so unreliable in training that Thames Valley Police had to scrap it and negotiate a new deal for older devices, the Mail can reveal.
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Police and Crime General
On Rue du Mont Blanc in the heart of Geneva, watches stolen on Britain’s streets languish in safes, awaiting sale to unsuspecting buyers.
At least so says investigator Christopher Marinello, who has an open feud with Swiss auction house Antiquorum after it failed to return his British client’s £260,000 Richard Mille timepiece.
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Justice
The family of a law graduate who was sexually assaulted and murdered as she walked home have told her inquest how they were “tortured” by the thought that her death could have been prevented.
Zara Aleena’s family said her murder highlighted “the crumbling justice system [which is] meant to protect us”.
Aleena, 35, was killed after a night out in Ilford, east London, in June 2022, by Jordan McSweeney, who had been released on licence from prison nine days before.
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Police and Crime General
Northern Ireland’s chief constable has announced an independent review to look at allegations of the police surveillance of journalists.
It comes after an Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) hearing in London sparked alarm.
The hearing was during an ongoing case examining allegations that investigative reporters Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney were subject to unlawful covert intelligence by the police.
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Prisons
Up to half of prisoners released early have been recalled within days at some jails after breaching their licence or reoffending, The Telegraph understands.
More than 100 prisoners a month at some jails are being recalled, according to prison service sources. In one case more than 200 offenders were freed in one probation area with half recalled within a week.
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Technology
In the latest in a series of articles exploring the opportunities and challenges presented to police by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), Chief Philip Lukens explores implications of synthetic identities, how they can be adopted and exploited for criminal use, and the strategies law enforcement needs to put in place to combat them.
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Police Demand
Gun crime in London rose twice as fast as the rest of the country last year, according to a Telegraph analysis of official data.
The number of gun offences has started to increase after a dip during the pandemic, when street crime plummeted due to multiple lockdowns.
Last year in London, gun crime increased by just under 20 per cent, from 1,009 offences in 2022 to 1,208 in 2023. This was double the rate of 8.8 per cent nationally.
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Economy & Public Finance
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said there will be no return to austerity under a Labour Government.
Experts have warned that local government could be left to shoulder the burden of public sector cuts in a new age of austerity, with a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank warning commitments by Labour and the Conservatives mean real-terms cuts will have to be made to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities without a higher overall spending envelope.
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Police Finances
Roger Hirst, the re-elected Essex Police, Fire, and Crime Commissioner, discusses his plans for his new term of office.
He highlights the importance of delivering results and reducing crime, with a goal of a 40% decrease in crime over the next four years.
Hirst emphasizes the need for resources, funding, and improved capabilities for the police force. He also discusses the collaborative approach taken with the government and the evidence-led approach to finance.
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Police Finances
Lincolnshire’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) Marc Jones has fired the opening salvo in a case that could reach the High Court.
Mr Jones has launched the legal action to force the Home Office to introduce a new funding formula to assess how much each police force in England and Wales receives through a Government grant.
The current funding formula, said Mr Jones, uses old population statistics from 2013 and outdated metrics such as pubs per square mile.
Mr Jones has been at the forefront of the present Government’s review of the funding formula – which has now been completed and won widespread support from forces across the country.
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Police and Crime General
Labour is pledging to put more police in communities and "take back our town centres from thugs and thieves".
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper repeated the party's promise of 13,000 officers and community support officers working in neighbourhoods in England and Wales.
The pledge involves hiring 3,000 new officers and 4,000 PCSOs.
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Police Finances
More than nine in 10 burglaries go unsolved in some MPs’ constituency areas, the Liberal Democrats have revealed, as the party called for a response guarantee for victims.
The police area covering former justice secretary Dominic Raab’s Elmbridge constituency in Surrey – a Lib Dem target seat – had the biggest proportion of unsolved burglaries last year at 92 per cent.
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Police and Crime General
However, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) identified areas where the force’s response to vulnerability could be improved, something which the constabulary said it is already addressing through the implementation of the Right Care Right Person initiative.
The review was commissioned by the then police and crime commissioner for Norfolk in January this year to examine how the force handles and responds to 999 calls.
It was commissioned following the deaths of four people at a house in Costessey in January after a 999 call, made an hour before police attended, was not responded to.
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Police and Crime General
Police are planning to deploy 80 detectives for their criminal inquiry into the Post Office scandal, the Guardian has learned, but victims will face a long wait to discover if charges will follow.
The investigation will examine potential offences of perjury, and perverting the course of justice by Post Office senior leaders as well as the tech company Fujitsu.
Police have already started discussions with prosecutors about the investigation and potential criminal charges, which stem from the possibility that post office operators were wrongly prosecuted for stealing when bosses allegedly knew their computer accounting system could be flawed.
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Technology
Sara needed some chocolate - she had had one of those days - so wandered into a Home Bargains store.
"Within less than a minute, I'm approached by a store worker who comes up to me and says, 'You're a thief, you need to leave the store'."
Sara - who wants to remain anonymous - was wrongly accused after being flagged by a facial-recognition system called Facewatch.
She says after her bag was searched she was led out of the shop, and told she was banned from all stores using the technology.
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Police Demand
Checks by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) found most forces still failed to go to every violent incident or where a suspect was detained, although there were significant improvements on previous levels.
Police attended just 60 per cent of shoplifting cases involving violence against staff months after a promise officers would go to every crime scene.
Checks by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) found most forces still failed to go to every violent incident or where a suspect was detained, although there were significant improvements on previous levels
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Police and Crime General
Hundreds of children under 10 faced stop and search by police last year, including some who were strip-searched, the Observer can reveal.
At least 432 children under the age of criminal responsibility were searched by the police forces in England and Wales in 2023, according to data.police.uk, an official site for open data on crime and policing.
Nearly a quarter of all the searches were conducted on those from black, Asian, or other minority ethnic backgrounds – disproportionately high compared with population representation.
The vast majority of the stop and searches – 79% – led to no further action from officers, either formal or informal. The highest number of searches on children under 10 was logged by Avon and Somerset police – at 117 – followed by Kent and the Metropolitan police.
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Police Demand
More than nine in 10 burglaries go unsolved in some MPs’ constituency areas, the Liberal Democrats have revealed, as the party called for a response guarantee for victims.
The police area covering former justice secretary Dominic Raab’s Elmbridge constituency in Surrey – a Lib Dem target seat – had the biggest proportion of unsolved burglaries last year at 92 per cent.
By contrast, the new constituency of Killingworth in Northumberland had the least worst performance with police failing to solve 56 per cent of the burglaries in the area last year.
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Justice
The Ministry of Justice’s ambition to reduce the backlog in crown courts in England and Wales to 53,000 by March next year is no longer achievable, a parliamentary watchdog has said.
The MoJ set the target in October 2021 when the outstanding caseload was 60,000, but by the end of last year it had reached 67,573 – its highest level ever – according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report.
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Justice
Criminals could be released from jail after serving only 43 per cent of their sentences under plans being considered to tackle the prison overcrowding crisis.
No 10 and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are discussing the proposals to reduce the time that convicted offenders spend in jail as a way to avoid running out of places in prison.
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Recruitment and Retention
They were gathered in the jungle, in a ceremonial wooden structure known as a maloca, and their immediate fate was in the hands of shamans dressed in brightly patterned robes. Summoned one by one, they each knocked back a shot of horrible-tasting dark sludge. ‘At that point,’ says Paul Haylock, ‘the nerves really did start to kick in. I’m thinking, “Is this really the right thing to be doing?”’
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Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation fell to 2.3 per cent in the year to April, official figures show. It marks a fall from 3.2 per cent in March, according to the Office for National Statistics, and is the lowest level in almost three years.
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Economy & Public Finance
The International Monetary Fund’s annual health check on the UK said “difficult choices” lay ahead because of a looming £30 billion hole in the public finances. In order to stop debt rising, the IMF said the UK Treasury may need to consider a range of potentially unpopular revenue-raising measures including widening the scope of VAT, road pricing, scrapping the triple lock on the state pension, raising more from inheritance tax and capital gains tax, and wider user charges for public services.
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Police and Crime General
Rishi Sunak has vowed to "fight for every vote" as he called an early UK general election for Thursday 4 July.
The PM made the announcement in a rain-soaked speech outside 10 Downing Street, as he bids to win a fifth term in office for the Conservatives.
The surprise move overturned expectations of an autumn poll, which might have given the Tories a better chance of closing the gap with Labour.
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Recruitment and Retention
Senior police officers have been told to adapt rotas for Gen Z recruits who don’t want to work overtime or weekends.
Chief Superintendent Rob Hay, the president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS), told the group’s centenary conference that working demands must be altered if the service is to attract younger people.
Gen Z recruits, generally classed as those born since 1997, have a “different expectation” for work-life balance to older personnel, Hay said, and police needed to “understand how we can adapt”.
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Police Demand
More than a third of police forces are defying advice to make fewer arrests as a row erupted over contingency measures to ease the prison overcrowding crisis.
Scotland Yard said that it would “never agree to pausing any necessary arrests” after temporary advice was issued to police chiefs last week to consider pausing “non-priority arrests” until there is enough capacity in prisons in England and Wales.
Chief constables were also urged to suspend operations that may trigger “large numbers of arrests” following two emergency measures introduced by the government that had a direct impact on frontline policing.
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Police and Crime General
A generation of investment is needed to stop scared young people in London and elsewhere from carrying blades, a Scotland Yard knife crime chief has said, as he warned that some teenagers are going out armed because they feel unprotected on the streets.
Met Commander Stephen Clayman, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on knife crime, said some knife carriers were carrying large “status” weapons to intimidate others as they tried to protect drug lines and gang territory.
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Police and Crime General
A police force once criticised for its failings has been taken out of special measures.
Staffordshire Police entered into an enhanced level of monitoring in June 2022, but can now return to routine inspections, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) said.
Improvements including how the force identifies vulnerable people at the first point of contact and its investigation standards led to the decision.
Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police Chris Noble said it was "really positive news".
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Police and Crime General
A police force heavily criticised for a series of failures has made a significant improvement and has now been taken out of special measures by inspectors.
Wiltshire Police was downgraded by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in June 2022, after being found to be failing in most areas, including how it protects the vulnerable.
However, in a letter published earlier, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said while "there is still more to do", he was "pleased with the progress" made by the force and it had now returned to routine monitoring.
He said: “I am reassured by the plans Wiltshire Police has in place to continue making improvements."
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Police and Crime General
The former home secretary Suella Braverman acted unlawfully in making it easier for the police to criminalise peaceful protests, the high court has ruled.
She was found to have both acted outside her powers and to have failed to consult properly over regulations that would be likely to increase prosecutions of protesters by a third.
Hundreds of protesters have been arrested since the government redefined the sort of protest that could be restricted by the police, allowing it where there is merely a “more than minor” hindrance to people’s daily lives.
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Police Finances
Analysis of government and Office for National Statistics data has shown that council tax for an average home in England increased 50 per cent faster than inflation between 1998 and 2023. An interactive map shows how much council tax has risen in different areas and what the total amounts to over the last 25 years. The LGA said: “While council tax is an important funding stream, it has never been the solution to the long-term pressures facing councils, raising different amounts in different parts of the country – unrelated to need - and adding to the financial pressures facing households.”
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Police Demand
Over half of criminal damage reports went unattended by police last year, new data has revealed.
Nearly 130,000 criminal damage incidents reported to police in 2023 did not result in an officer attending the scene.
Greater Manchester Police was found to be the force with the worst attendance rate, with 81 per cent of criminal damage reports going unattended last year.
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Police and Crime General
Some schools in England are sending police to the homes of children who are persistently absent, or warning them their parents may go to prison if their attendance doesn’t improve, the Observer has learned.
Headteachers say they are now under intense pressure from the government to turn around the crisis in attendance, with a record 150,000 children at state schools classed as severely absent in 2022-23. From September, all state schools in England will have to share their attendance records every day with the Department for Education.
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Police and Crime General
Metropolitan Police officers have warned they are losing the confidence to do their jobs after a colleague was convicted of assault for arresting a woman during a fare evasion row.
PC Perry Lathwood will be sentenced next month and could be sacked after a district judge ruled it had not been necessary for him to grab a woman by the arm and handcuff her when she refused to show a valid ticket while travelling on a bus in Croydon.
Mr Lathwood had been supporting Transport for London (TfL) staff who were carrying out ticket inspections when the incident happened in July last year.
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Police and Crime General
The Met Police have been criticised over their handling of the London pro-Palestine marches, with new plans to put them to a stop considered by the Home Office.
The Met Police are set to be given new powers to shut down pro-Palestinian protests as the Campaign Against Antisemitism slammed the "expensive shambles" of policing, according to reports.
New plans to amend sections of the Public Order Act are being considered by the Home which allows processions to be banned and public assemblies to be restricted, according to the Telegraph.
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Justice
Ministers have triggered a plan which allows the criminal justice system to delay court cases of some suspects because of overcrowding in prisons.
The emergency measure means some suspects will be released on bail, rather than sent to a cell, because their trial will be put off.
It comes as the prime minister was questioned over the scheme allowing for the early release of some prisoners.
Rishi Sunak insisted nobody deemed a public safety threat would be eligible.
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Justice
Legal professionals also accuse the government of "a systemic failure to deliver on a core duty" - namely the protection of its citizens - as delays in justice leave people on bail "at risk of reoffending for extended periods".
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Police and Crime General
More than 4,500 officers have completed the new in-depth training – known as the Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Investigative Skills Development Programme (RISDP) – more than doubling the Government’s target.
All fresh recruits will also undertake this new first responder training in rape and sexual offences.
The Home Secretary said it was “another significant milestone” in transforming the way the criminal justice system deals with rape and sexual offences.
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Recruitment and Retention
A record number of police officers were investigated for alleged misconduct at Britain’s biggest force last year after a series of scandals. Probes carried out at the Met Police grew by 80 per cent to 1,051 from 584 investigations in 2022.
The force hailed it as the “strongest crackdown” since the 1970s. The number of investigations that led to full misconduct hearings grew by 29 per cent in 2023 to 134 cases from 104 held in 2022.
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Technology
The UK government has announced investments in live facial recognition and research and development for remote scanning technologies as it attempts to curb an increase in knife crime in the Kingdom.
The government is allocating £4 million to combat knife crime, which includes over £500,000 to deploy four vans as mobile live facial recognition units. The announcement notes that 15 people were arrested in Croydon during December after being identified with real-time facial recognition.
Policing Minister Chris Philp suggests that the ability to identify more people on watch lists could result in more apprehensions of people committing knife crime.
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Police Finances
This will include the development of knife detection technologies and new mobile live facial recognition (LFR) units for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).
Home Secretary James Cleverly said new technologies are already “revolutionising” how the police fight crime.
The investment will see £3.5 million go into the research, development and evaluation of new technologies which can detect knives carried from a distance and hand-held or body-worn systems that can be operated by individual officers.
The Government also confirmed that the MPS will receive £547,863 to fund the refit and redeployment of four vans into new mobile LFR units to bolster efforts to address knife crime, which is rising in the capital.
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Police and Crime General
Young people are using sites such as Telegram and TikTok to buy large knives for use in attacks and intimidation, with some linked to Britain’s drug wars, police said.
Stephen Clayman, national lead for knife crime for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, made it clear on Tuesday that police want tougher action after a 7% year-on-year rise in knife offences, with a 20% rise in knife-point robberies.
Clayman, who is a commander in the Metropolitan police, said there were new trends in the supply of knives, with government and police scrambling to keep up.
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Prisons
An early release prison scheme, used to free up space in jails across England and Wales, is causing "high-risk" offenders to be let out, some of whom are a "risk to children", according to a new report.
The examination of HMP Lewes, by the chief inspector of prisons, found that "safe risk management" is being undermined.
The findings, published on Tuesday, were part of a wide-ranging inspection at the East Sussex prison in February, but some similar problems were highlighted in a parallel report into Chelmsford prison published last week.
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Police and Crime General
Sarah Taylor, the newly elected Norfolk Police and Crime Commissioner, discusses her background and what led her to stand as a candidate.
She highlights the importance of a strong preventative focus in areas of policing and the need for more visible policing presence.
Sarah also expresses her interest in the criminal justice system and the role of the PCC in resolving issues with the backlog in courts and the CPS.
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Prisons
An early release prison scheme, used to free up space in jails across England and Wales, is causing "high-risk" offenders to be let out, some of whom are a "risk to children", according to a new report.
The examination of HMP Lewes, by the chief inspector of prisons, found that "safe risk management" is being undermined.
The findings, published on Tuesday, were part of a wide-ranging inspection at the East Sussex prison in February, but some similar problems were highlighted in a parallel report into Chelmsford prison published last week.
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Police and Crime General
Police officers must carry out more stop and searches to address knife crime as the tactic is “not used nearly often enough”, according to the policing minister.
Chris Philp said that police forces cannot afford to “tiptoe around using these powers in an aim to appease”.
Officers need reasonable suspicion to carry out a stop and search. The latest government figures, in the year ending March 2022, show black people were five times as likely to be stopped as white people, with 27.2 stops per 1,000 black people against 5.6 per 1,000 white people.
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Police and Crime General
In the first of a series of interviews looking at Illicit Drugs and Policing, Jason Harwin , KPM speaks with the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) Drugs lead Chief Constable Dr Richard Lewis and NPCC Drugs coordinator Mark Lay at the NPCC Promising Practice event at Canada House London on the 17th April.
With over 140 delegates from across Policing, the Home Office, APPC, Health professionals and wider law enforcement the event provided an opportunity to share practice, including responses to the increasing risks from illicit drugs.
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Police and Crime General
Merseyside's police and crime commissioner has said many members of the public are still unaware of what the role involves but are "pleasantly surprised" when they hear about what work is being done.
Labour’s Emily Spurrell won a second term with 152,640 votes at the recent local elections, but only 24% of the region's electorate turned out for the poll.
Ms Spurrell said the post was key “in terms of scrutiny and oversight of the police”.
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Technology
UK policing faces a continuing struggle to leverage the maximum effectiveness and efficiency out of the use of new technology, while accommodating concerns around ethics and human rights; Darren Scates, the Met Police Chief Digital Data and Technology Officer, looks at some of the particular challenges around the practical implementation and delivery of innovative technologies, and suggests steps the service could take to improve outcomes.
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Technology
As part of a wider initiative to tackle violence in the night-time economy, West Yorkshire Police has used targeted social media campaigns appearing on mobile devices, with impressive results; as other forces look to learn from West Yorkshire’s success, Ch Insp James Kitchen spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the thinking behind the project, and how similar approaches could offer potential in tackling other challenges.
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Technology
Police officers in Britain could be armed with Ghostbusters-style devices that fire electromagnetic rays to shut down the engines of ebikes being used in a crime.
Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said the weapon was in development and could be months away from being available, though it is expected to be longer than that.
He said it would be housed in a backpack, reminiscent of the equipment used in the Ghostbusters series of movies. It could tackle crime linked to newer vehicles such as electric bikes and electric scooters.
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Police and Crime General
The chairman of Marks & Spencer has claimed police are “not interested” in dealing with shoplifting after figures showed the majority of store thefts in some crime hotspots were going unsolved.
Archie Norman said retailers were being forced to spend “a lot of money” on trying to keep crime rates down, including installing new camera systems and store detectives.
Mr Norman said while shoplifting rates in M&S stores were down, he added this was “mostly” because of work by the retailer to tackle offences.
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Recruitment and Retention
To mark the start of mental Health Awareness Week (13-19 May), APCC mental health lead Lisa Townsend, said:
“Mental health is a key priority for all Police and Crime Commissioners, and Mental Health Awareness Week allows us to share local resources and to encourage society’s most vulnerable to access support at the earliest opportunity.
“As the Association of Police and Crime Commissioner’s national mental health lead, I have made it my priority to support those who struggle with their mental health by helping them gain access to the vital support they deserve.
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Police Demand
The bank of video screens looks like something straight out of a spy movie. Inside a secure room, dozens of images show footage of staircases, doors, the bar, booths and the dancefloor. This is Tiger Tiger London, a popular nightclub in the capital’s West End, and the CCTV operators are scanning for suspicious behaviour.
A floorplan on the wall has pins marking hotspots where clubbers have previously been sexually harassed, had something stolen, been injured or – the reason the Metropolitan Police has persuaded the club to open its doors to journalists – had their drink spiked.
“If something happens, a female welfare officer will go to that location straight off,” said Mark McEvoy of Novus Leisure, which owns the Tiger Tiger chain. “They’ll then take the victim away to the welfare room. The suspect, if we’ve identified them immediately, will be taken to another room. Police will be called. We’ll start then burning [copying] the CCTV [footage so] that by the time the officer turns up, we have everything ready to give them. Then it’s their job after that.”
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Police and Crime General
Racism is getting worse in Britain’s biggest police force, Black police leaders have warned, as new figures reveal that tribunals for racial discrimination have soared by 110 per cent in a year.
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Police Demand
The British countryside is being exploited by criminal gangs, bolstering a black market demand for farming machinery, according to the National Rural Crime Network.
Exports from the UK to Eastern Europe are becoming increasingly common.
Three months after Ukraine was invaded, £4 million worth of machinery was stolen by Russian soldiers - linked not just to military tactics, but to Western sanctions too.
Tim Passmore, Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk, said: "When an economy goes onto a war footing, there tends to be a neglect for components and manufacturing of agricultural machinery.
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Technology
The college says navigating the dark web can be “challenging for frontline teams”.
The new training, developed by the college’s Digital Intelligence and Investigation Programme, will help staff to:
Recognise the differences between the surface web, deep web and dark web;
Identify what can be found on the dark web;
Summarise how anonymising software works;
Recognise how the metaverse is used in conjunction with the dark web; and
Provide insight into the risks of the dark web and how to stay safe.
“The web, or surface web as it’s known, is made up of public-facing websites that can be searched for and accessed easily,” says the college.
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Police Demand
New data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows knife and gun crime in London rose sharply in the 12 months before December 2023.
The Metropolitan Police Service saw a 21% increase in knife or sharp instrument incidents across the capital between 2022 and 2023. Between January 2023 and January 2024, the rate of increase stood at 16%.
In January 2024, these alarming figures prompted actor Idris Elba to launch the Don’t Stop Your Future campaign. The aim was to raise public awareness and amplify the voices of those marginalised communities most affected in the capital. Elba called for a ban on zombie knives and machetes and, crucially, for better funding for youth services.
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Police and Crime General
Ian Wiggett from Policing Insight discusses the recent Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections in England and Wales with Bernard Rix. The main themes include the results of the elections, the makeup of the elected PCCs, and the potential impact of the new PCCs on policing priorities.
The conversation also touches on the diversity of the elected PCCs and the changes in the political landscape. Overall, the Labour Party performed well in the elections, but there were some surprising results in traditionally conservative areas.
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Prisons
Some prisoners will be freed up to 70 days early after ministers quietly extended an emergency early release scheme to alleviate the prison overcrowding crisis.
An email sent to probation and prison staff, obtained by The Times, said measures introduced less than two months ago had failed to ease pressure in men’s prisons in England and Wales.
It said that a scheme that allows prisoners to be set free before their release date will be extended from 35 days to 70 days from May 23.
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Technology
Body cameras worn by UK police are being manufactured in China, despite increasing concerns over Beijing’s spying activities.
London-based Reveal Media supplies at least 12 UK police forces with body cams, including at least three forces with live facial recognition (LFR) technology – which can be used to scan the faces of members of the public in real-time as officers conduct patrols.
The cameras are manufactured by a subsidiary in China, while Reveal Media also supplies cameras from Shenzhen Eeyelog Technology Ltd – a Chinese firm which provides body cams to the Chinese government, according to the company’s website.
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Police Demand
There can be few greater indictments of the state of British crime fighting than the story of a burglar jailed in a private prosecution because the local constabulary failed to investigate.
The offender had 105 previous convictions, including 33 burglaries. He was arrested by two detectives from a private policing company after he broke into a shop and made off with food and drink worth hundreds of pounds.
Even though he was caught on CCTV and the store manager called the police, the Met decided not to investigate and the case was taken up by TM Eye, a company founded by a former Scotland Yard detective chief inspector. My Local Bobby, part of the operation, provides uniformed staff and plain-clothes detectives to patrol shopping areas for retailers.
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Justice
Survivors of domestic abuse have been put in danger by ministers’ failure to give notice of the early release from prison of their abusers, a Home Office adviser has said.
Nicole Jacobs, the independent domestic abuse commissioner, criticised the lack of warning of a new policy to free prisoners up to 70 days early from full jails.
The government’s early release scheme designed to relieve the pressure in overcrowded jails had initially involved inmates having their sentences cut by up to 18 days. That was increased to between 35 and 60 in March and will rise again from 23 May, it has emerged.
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Police and Crime General
Election results, 2024.
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Economy & Public Finance
Jeremy Hunt and his team are reportedly considering not holding another autumn statement before the next election, amid uncertainty about the public finances. It is understood the Chancellor may opt to include further tax-cutting pledges in the next Conservative manifesto, rather than holding a final so-called “fiscal event” which would require a detailed analysis of the public finances by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
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Police and Crime General
Labour gained 10 police and crime commissioner posts from the Conservatives at last week’s elections for the 37 positions across England and Wales.
The Tories held onto 19 commissioner roles and Labour to seven, while Plaid Cymru retained its single PCC in Dyfed Powys.
Although Independents took 11 posts in the first PCC elections in 2012, their share declined sharply in 2016 and vanished in 2021, since then all commissioners have been party candidates.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The 2024 intake of those elected to hold policing publicly accountable in England and Wales is the most diverse since the role of Police and Crime Commissioner was created. Following last week’s elections, of the 37 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and Police, Fire and Crime Commissioners (PFCCs), 13 are women – including the two first black women to be voted into office.
Labour gained 11 PCCs along with all five mayoral posts that have responsibility for policing in their areas, giving them oversight of 22 of the 42 England and Wales police force areas. Conservative PCCs were elected in 19 areas, and Plaid Cymru retained control in Dyfed-Powys. In all, 16 police forces will be overseen by newly elected PCCs or their mayoral equivalents. In areas where the mayor is responsible for police governance, they may appoint a deputy mayor to carry out this role.
The North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s role and responsibilities have transferred to the newly created York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor, and the functions of the South Yorkshire PCC have moved to the new mayor of South Yorkshire.
[ more...]
Police Finances
While the full picture of the Hainault attack is yet to emerge, the early briefings from the Metropolitan police were clear: a key line of inquiry, in terms of possible motive, was whether the suspect has a history of mental ill-health.
If the police hunches are correct, the tragedy may turn out to be the latest in a series of high-profile killings that have focused public attention on the adequacy of mental health treatment and care.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The body representing rank and file police in London has renewed its call for every officer who wants a Taser to be equipped with one in the wake of the Hainault sword attack.
About 7,500 of the Met’s 34,000 police officers are currently trained to carry the non-lethal devices.
However, the incident in Hainault, north-east London in which two officers were wounded by a samurai sword-wielding assailant has led to calls for the number of Tasers to be increased.
[ more...]
Justice
Nearly 250,000 shoplifting cases were unsolved in England and Wales last year, an increase of almost 50 per cent on 2022.
The number of unsolved shoplifting crimes has increased by 47 per cent since 2022, when 168,780 were unsolved.
Last year 248,314 shoplifting offences were closed without a suspect being identified, accounting for almost six out of ten (58 per cent) of all overall cases. This means that, on average, 680 shoplifting incidents went unsolved every day.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police forces up and down the country are struggling with budget cuts, with average call response times also beginning to slip, new data show.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Rishi Sunak has not ruled out holding a general election in July. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said his “working assumption” is the election would take place in the second half of the year.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales have soared to the highest level in 20 years, figures have revealed, as retailers warn thieves have been given “free rein” by police.
A total of 430,104 offences were recorded in the year to December 2023, up 37 per cent from 315,040 in the previous 12 months.
This is the highest figure since current police recording practices began in the year ending March 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Home Office has announced that it is planning on saving 38 million police hours, so that they can focus on keeping the streets safe.
This comes in response to the Policing Productivity Review, which was published by the Home Office last autumn and plans on using new technology to meet recommendations made through the review. £230 million worth of investment will be injected over the course of the next four years to ensure that tech developments can reduce the amount of time that police officers spend in the office.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
‘Violent crime has reduced’, reassured the Home Secretary in the wake of the Wales school stabbing on 24 April.
Speaking from Italy, James Cleverly told PA reporters he had been “receiving updates about this terrible situation, and my thoughts are with those people who have been hurt, and their friends and family.”
“Violent crime has been reduced significantly because of the increase in police numbers that we’ve seen in the UK,” he added.
An arrest was made after two teachers and a pupil were stabbed at Amman Valley School, Carmarthenshire.
[ more...]
Justice
Judges of all types could sit in pubs, church halls and libraries to reconnect the justice system with local communities, under a proposal being considered by The Times Crime and Justice Commission.
Dame Anne Rafferty, a former Court of Appeal and High Court judge, said reform was needed to restore public faith in the criminal justice system.
She proposed that public buildings could be repurposed as courts to expand the settings for a range of hearings and make the legal process more accessible. “The community can embrace justice and justice can position itself locally, as it always did and should still do,” Rafferty said.
[ more...]
Prisons
Britain’s overcrowded jails are a tinderbox that could ignite at any time, according to Nick Hardwick.
The former chief inspector of prisons fears that “we are very close to the conditions prior to the 1990 riots in Strangeways. It’s a dangerous time. You’ve got a general level of frustration, so if you get a spark, that’s when stuff will kick off.”
With prisons stretched to the limit, the government has had to adopt emergency measures, including releasing offenders 60 days early and delaying sentencing hearings. Yet there are still too many prisoners and too few staff in a crumbling prison estate.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The evolving landscape of law enforcement in the UK faces a significant challenge in recruiting and retaining police officers. This concern focuses on whether the expectations of long-term service, reminiscent of past norms where officers served for 30 years or more, remain viable in today’s rapidly changing societal and professional contexts.
Such expectations are rooted in the profession’s history, yet they now confront a reality where the dynamics of work and life have fundamentally shifted.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Labour has revealed plans to set up a national police savings body to buy police cars, IT equipment, forensic services and other kit to pay for 13,000 extra neighbourhood police officers.
The move is designed to tackle huge disparities between police forces on the cost of vital equipment.
Figures revealed in freedom of information requests submitted by Labour have found that the cost of patrol vehicles ranged from £12,500 for Staffordshire police to £22,361 in Cheshire. The cost of a high-performance vehicle in Merseyside was £55,000 — double the £27,000 paid by Lancashire.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A mobile knife arch that was used at a music event in Devon at the weekend allowed officers to have an "open conversation" about knife crime, police have said.
Devon and Cornwall Police said the knife arch was used at an under-18s music event at The Foundry in Torquay on Saturday.
Officers said the arch, which looks similar to security scanners used in airports, was designed to deter knife crime.
[ more...]
Technology
Child abusers are creating AI-generated “deepfakes” of their targets in order to blackmail them into filming their own abuse, beginning a cycle of sextortion that can last for years.
Creating simulated child abuse imagery is illegal in the UK, and Labour and the Conservatives have aligned on the desire to ban all explicit AI-generated images of real people.
But there is little global agreement on how the technology should be policed. Worse, no matter how strongly governments take action, the creation of more images will always be a press of a button away – explicit imagery is built into the foundations of AI image generation.
[ more...]
Fire
The chief fire officer (CFO) and assistant chief fire officer (ACFO) of Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service both sent messages suggesting they wanted to kill or harm female colleagues.
In the WhatsApp messages - which have been leaked to ITV News - the senior officers also use the words "lazy cow", "bint" and "useless" to refer to women in the service.
Several of the messages target Area Manager Jan Morris, who resigned from the service this year after reading what had been said about her.
[ more...]
Police Demand
In a first for British policing, a new Centre for Police Productivity will use new tools to spot emerging crime trends and tactics to drive efficiency. The centre will work with police forces to develop new tactics before testing and sharing them to tackle crime early on and save officer time.
Coming out of the government’s independent Policing Productivity Review and created with government funding, the College of Policing will host the centre. It will complement the knowledge gained from the What Works Centre for Crime Reduction where police use evidence and knowledge to make informed decisions.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
New legal guidance will make it easier for police to go after stalkers, after ministers admitted too many are slipping through the net.
Stalking Protection Orders were introduced four years ago and allow police to impose conditions on perpetrators not to approach or contact their victims.
But figures obtained under freedom of information laws by a victims' charity show some police forces have issued fewer than 10 per year.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
As shoplifting, cybercrime, fraud, rape, knife crime and other offences soar but fewer crimes are solved, experts warn that punishment as a deterrent is in danger of falling apart
[ more...]
Technology
The Director General of the National Crime Agency and European Police Chiefs are calling for industry and governments to take urgent action to ensure public safety across technology platforms.
At a meeting in London this week, the 32 European Police Chiefs agreed a statement expressing their deep concern that end-to-end encryption is being rolled out in a way that undermines their ability to investigate crime and keep the public safe.
It will stop technology companies from seeing offending that occurs on their platforms. It will also hamper law enforcement’s ability to lawfully access data as part of investigations to prevent and prosecute the most serious crimes, such as child sexual abuse, human trafficking, drug smuggling, murder, economic crime and terrorism offences.
[ more...]
Justice
The year-long Commission will draw up recommendations to address the challenges in areas such as knife crime, gangs and acquisitive crime; cybercrime, fraud and online harms; policing, including the culture of the police; violence against women and girls; terrorism; court back-logs and problems with legal aid. It is expected to produce a final report in April 2025.
Eighteen experts, including former police chiefs, business leaders, lawyers and academics, have been asked to join the Commission.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Crime rates in rural areas are rising faster than in urban areas, new figures have revealed.
The amount of recorded crime has risen by almost a third in rural parts of England and Wales since 2011, compared to 24 per cent in urban areas.
New statistics revealed by the Labour Party show that rural areas have seen a total rise of 130,000 reported offences, including close to 30,000 more instances of criminal damage and arson.
[ more...]
Technology
Facebook and other tech giants are putting “profit before safety” by introducing end-to-end encryption on their messaging platforms, the head of the National Crime Agency has warned.
Graeme Biggar, the NCA’s director-general, said US companies such as Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, have “consciously blinded themselves” to serious crimes, including terrorism and child sexual abuse, by the default addition of new privacy measures.
End-to-end encryption, which is already standard on some apps, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, stops anyone but the sender and recipient of a message from seeing it, making it impossible to detect potential offences.
[ more...]
Justice
MPs from across the political spectrum have urged the government to remove a “barrier to justice” that sees crime victims in England and Wales forced to pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for transcripts of court proceedings.
Under the current system, those affected by crime – including the most serious sexual and violent offences – can face steep fees if they want to obtain written records from cases they were involved in.
Juliana Terlizzi, a victim of rape who waived her right to anonymity, said she was quoted £7,500 for a transcript from a 10-day crown court trial that resulted in the man who attacked and drugged her being jailed for 15 years. In other cases, the admin charges are reported to have been as high as £22,000.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Dame Sharon White was visiting the John Lewis shop in Glasgow when she saw a group of teenage boys scoping out the technology department, clearly looking for an opportunity to shoplift the headphones and gadgets.
“I found myself following them,” she says. “It was a slightly mad thing to do — we always say to our partners, keep yourself safe and distanced.” A security guard came over to speak to the potential thieves “and everything was fine but the next day they then stole from our John Lewis store in Edinburgh. They were just young kids, 15-year-olds.”
As chairwoman of the John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, White never expected crime to be a top priority, but she says shoplifting has now become the “number one thing” for many stores.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Voters are losing faith in the police after a spate of scandals and a rise in offences including shoplifting and cybercrime, polling has revealed as The Times launches a groundbreaking year-long inquiry into the future of the criminal justice system.
The YouGov survey finds a devastating lack of confidence, with more than half of the public saying they do not trust the police to solve crimes and over a third saying they have no faith in the authorities to maintain law and order.
The Times Crime and Justice Commission, which will report next April, will take evidence from across the criminal justice system and draw up a radical blueprint for far-reaching reform. It follows The Times Education Commission and The Times Health Commission, the findings of which have been endorsed by both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Further coverage of Freedom of Information requests that revealed a 70 per cent rise in the total amount of council tax arrears over the last 5 years, with almost 600,000 residents referred to bailiffs have been reported. The LGA said: "Enforcement agents should only ever be used as a last resort. Before the situation reaches a stage where enforcement agents are involved, several letters should have been written, people should have been encouraged to apply for financial support, and efforts should be made to arrange new payment plans."
[ more...]
Police Demand
A "shoplifters' charter" has seen thefts rise significantly - to about one offence every minute - but police are charging fewer people, according to Labour.
The party said data showed a record 402,482 shoplifting offences in England and Wales in the year to September 2023.
However, offences resulting in a police charge fell from 20% to 15% between 2018 and 2023, according to a Freedom of Information request.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Only four out of 10 people in England say they trust the police, with the UK’s biggest force, the Metropolitan police, getting the lowest confidence score, research has found.
The poll surveyed nine English regions, in eight of which female respondents had greater trust in the police than male respondents. But for the Met in London, hit by a succession of scandals, women trusted Britain’s largest force less than men.
The poll, which revealed significantly lower trust among ethnic minorities in policing than among white people, comes before a general election where law and order and crime are expected to be a big issue.
[ more...]
Justice
Calls made to an anti-slavery helpline have reached a record high, with the number of potential victims in the care sector rising by almost a third.
According to anti-slavery charity Unseen, the number of calls to the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline in 2023 increased by more than 19%, up from 9,779 in 2022 to 11,700 last year.
Labour abuse remained the main form of exploitation up by 11% from 464 cases in 2022 to 516 in 2023.
[ more...]
Technology
University students have turned to cyber fraud to boost their income, police have said, as they revealed they have infiltrated a huge phishing site on the dark web responsible for scamming tens of thousands of people.
The site called LabHost was active since 2021 and was a cyber fraud superstore, allowing users to produce realistic-looking websites from household names such as the big banks, ensnaring victims around the world including 70,000 in the UK.
[ more...]
Police Finances
New measures laid in Parliament today (16 April 2024) will make it easier for police chiefs to sack rogue officers during misconduct hearings.
Police chief constables will be given the responsibility of chairing the hearings which decide on the removal of officers found guilty of police misconduct.
By giving these powers to chief constables, police leaders will be held increasingly accountable for their own officers and be able to influence any dismissal decisions impacting their own force.
[ more...]
Justice
One of the first known victims of murderer and serial rapist Iain Packer has claimed an "old-boy network" is preventing complaints about police conduct being properly investigated.
Magdalene Robertson, who complained about the officers who investigated her case, also said police were connected through groups including masonic lodges and golf clubs.
She told MSPs that police "do not want to be blamed" for problems with investigations and claimed the police watchdog Pirc deliberately caused delays.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
New arrangements for misconduct hearings whereby Legally Qualified Chairs (LQCs) will be replaced by chief officers in presiding over hearings are set to come into force on May 7.
The Home Office reforms, put before Parliament on Tuesday, will allow chief constables to lead the proceedings and restore responsibilities chiefs held almost a decade ago before LQCs were brought in to provide independence to the process.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey hinted that the UK might be able to lower interest rates before the US, saying inflation dynamics in the two economies are diverging.
Bailey said on Tuesday that there is more “demand-led inflation pressure” in the US than seen in the UK after markets were spooked by surprisingly strong price data in America last week. He said there is “strong evidence” of UK price pressures retreating.
“The dynamics of inflation are rather different between Europe — I mean Europe geographically now — and in the US,” he said in an interview with the International Monetary Fund. In the UK “we’re still seeing the extension of the process of coming out of the big supply shocks, the impact of the war, the impact of coming out of Covid.”
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police forces have begun trawling through crime and counter-terrorism intelligence reports after faulty mobile phone data is believed to have been submitted as evidence in criminal cases for over a year.
It is understood experts are now manually checking databases for information provided by O2, amid concerns the problem could cause trials to be further delayed or convictions challenged.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police failed to show up to more than seven in 10 car thefts last year, shocking figures reveal today(TUES).
Some 30,900 vehicle thefts went unattended by officers in 2023, accounting for 72% of all cases during this period, according to research by the Liberal Democrats. The number of unattended incidents had also risen dramatically compared to previous years, up 32% from 2021 figures, which saw 22,979 unattended car theft incidents.
Of the 23 forces that responded to freedom of information requests, Cambridgeshire was the worst performing, with 1,156 incidents of car theft going unattended, accounting for 90% of all cases. Bedfordshire followed closely behind with 1,187 (88%) of incidents not attended by officers, responses show.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Price falls for some food items like meat, crumpets and chocolate biscuits helped drive inflation down to its lowest level in two-and-a-half years.
The rate consumer prices have been rising at fell to 3.2% in the year to March, down from 3.4% the month before, according to official figures.
Inflation has been falling gradually since it peaked at 11.1% in late 2022.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
What would a member of the public expect of the selection procedure for a future police officer? He or she would surely imagine that candidates for a force were interviewed in person and at great length, and that family and friends were contacted and visited to verify their backgrounds. And, of course, the recruitment process would include the most thorough background checks, with the merest hint of criminality — certainly in adulthood — being immediately fatal to an application. This would not be a one-off check but the start of a continuing process, tracking officers throughout their careers. This is what reasonable laymen would expect as a minimum. Yet the elements above cannot be taken for granted in selection procedures practised by some of the more than 40 forces that make up the police service in this country.
Despite the appalling scandals surrounding Wayne Couzens and David Carrick, former firearms officers in the Metropolitan Police, both of them prolific sexual predators guilty of the most heinous crimes, vetting of new officers remains porous. Bad apples can still slip into the barrel — and ones that go rotten may not be picked up.
[ more...]
Justice
Domestic abuse cases are widespread in countries across the world. In the United States, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner. Across the European Union, at least two women are killed daily by an intimate partner or family member. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, partners or family members are responsible for nearly half of all female homicides.
Given the profound impact of domestic violence on individuals and society at large, and the potential risk of escalation of harm, domestic abuse cases in which a high risk of future harm has been identified are a high priority for law enforcement agencies. Despite that, across England and Wales, we see a steeply increasing number of domestic abuse cases that are closed because victims withdraw their complain.
In our recent CEP discussion paper, we explore the connection between the workload of police officers and the likelihood of victims withdrawing from high-risk domestic abuse cases, using the data from Greater Manchester Police spanning January 2014 to March 2019. Our findings reveal that an addition of 10 cases per officer per month is related to a 3 percentage point increase in the likelihood of victim withdrawal.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
More than a third of people caught with class A drugs such as cocaine and heroin are being let off, analysis by The Telegraph has shown, sparking fears that they are being legalised by stealth.
Home Office data analysed by The Telegraph reveals that 39.2 per cent of people caught with hard drugs, other than cannabis, avoided a criminal record and were instead handed community resolutions or let off any action “in the public interest” last year. It represents a fivefold increase since 2016 when the proportion was just 7.5 per cent.
Community resolutions are supposed to be used only for “low-level” offences. However, MPs have warned that in the absence of government direction, police forces appeared to be crafting their own policies with first-time offenders not being prosecuted even for possession of class A drugs.
[ more...]
Technology
Experts have revealed the ways social media networks TikTok and Instagram are profiting from having creators promoting a criminal lifestyle in the UK on their platforms.
A six-month Express investigation found one of Albania’s biggest online celebrities, Aleks Visha, rose to fame through live online tours of UK cannabis farms and boasts about his criminal exploits.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The police were first made aware of suspicious messages targeting men at Westminster late last year - but did not warn MPs, the BBC has learned.
Many of those targeted in the alleged "honeytrap" scandal did not realise others had also been receiving messages until media reports in the past week.
It now emerges the Metropolitan Police began an investigation last year when Commons security staff were alerted.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A North Wales Police officer who showed bodycam footage of a dead man to a colleague who was also his girlfriend while off duty would have been sacked if he had not quit the force.
A misconduct hearing was told that PC Matthew Roberts showed other bodycam footage to the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) with whom he was in a relationship at the time.
The footage included the arrest of a man who claimed the former police officer "had aggravated or caused him a broken wrist" and the "forced removal of a female from private premises".
[ more...]
Police Finances
An evaluation report into the UK Government-funded Grip programme and hot spot policing initiative designed to tackle serious violence has highlighted significant reductions in crime and potential savings, but has also warned that the approach is not a “quick fix” and requires commitment and buy-in from forces and leaders, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
[ more...]
Technology
There have long been warnings about the criminal and terrorist threat posed by drones, a risk that is increasing with the proliferation of cheap drone technology and the accessibility of explosives; against this backdrop, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the concerns and recommendations regarding the use of drones highlighted in the latest report from the Counter-Terrorism Preparedness Network.
[ more...]
Police Demand
New counter-terror tactics have helped police to catch 24 of London’s worst predators suspected of crimes against women and girls in six months.
The Metropolitan Police has revealed a landmark pilot, which uses data to collate a monthly list of the suspected worst criminals targeting female victims, has already resulted in a string of arrests and convictions.
The scheme was announced last year after the troubled force was hit by a series of scandals and a savage review by Baroness Louise Casey who found that it was institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The government is investing more than £55m in expanding facial recognition systems – including vans that will scan crowded high streets – as part of a renewed crackdown on shoplifting.
The scheme was announced alongside plans for tougher punishments for serial or abusive shoplifters in England and Wales, including being forced to wear a tag to ensure they do not revisit the scene of their crime, under a new standalone criminal offence of assaulting a retail worker.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Thousands of police have been drafted in for tonight's Champions League games in Paris and Madrid amid the terror threat.
Several posters emerged on social media alleging to be from the Al-Azaim Foundation - a media arm of an IS affiliate group.
They called for attacks on the four Champions League quarter-final ties that are taking place this week.
In response, security has been "considerably reinforced" in Paris ahead of tonight's game, as thousands of officers were drafted in to help with the security operation in Madrid across both nights.
[ more...]
Police Finances
More than 80% of South Yorkshire Police officers have experienced stress or low mood over the past year, according to a survey by their union.
A similar proportion felt financially worse off than five years ago, while 17% said they "never or almost never" had enough funds to cover essentials.
The Police Federation of England and Wales heard from 409 force officers for its Pay and Morale Report 2023.
The force said it hoped to create an "inviting and encouraging workplace".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Scottish police received more than 7,000 online reports of hate crimes in the first week after a controversial new law came into effect.
The force said this was a "substantial increase" - but that the impact on frontline policing had been minimal.
Police Scotland said the "vast majority" of the reports were anonymous and that no action was taken after they were assessed against the new legislation.
A total of 240 hate crimes and 30 non-crime hate incidents were recorded during the seven-day period.
[ more...]
Justice
The number of shoplifting offences leading to a prosecution has fallen in parts of the South East over the last five years, despite a rise in recorded crimes.
It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Wednesday that assaulting a shopworker was to be made a separate criminal offence in response to a wave of retail crime.
Provisional Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) figures show offences leading to a court appearance fell in Surrey and Sussex between 2019 and 2023.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police sergeants are earning up to 150pc extra in overtime pay each year despite solving a lower proportion of crimes.
The overtime bill has soared by £100m in the past two years, with police forces spending more than £1bn on extra hours since 2020. Last year alone accounted for £412m, while between 2020 and 2021, the total spend was £311m.
The basic pay for a sergeant varies from £49,077 to £51,498, depending on experience. Taking an assumed average salary of £50,000, this means some are being paid 146pc more than their average salary in overtime pay.
[ more...]
Justice
Judges have been told to consider more lenient sentences for offenders from “deprived” or “difficult” backgrounds.
The Sentencing Council, the official body responsible for setting guidelines for judges and magistrates, has for the first time spelt out “mitigating” factors relating to disadvantage that courts should consider before passing sentence.
The guidelines on “difficult and/or deprived background or personal circumstance” state that these factors include poverty, low educational attainment, experience of discrimination and insecure housing.
[ more...]
Justice
The expansion of testing on arrest across England and Wales has seen nearly 100,000 drug tests on suspects whose behaviour was believed to have been driven by their drug abuse.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
It’s fair to say that the creation of elected PCCs – that’s Police and Crime Commissioners – didn’t get off to the best of starts.
Introduced under the Coalition government, these new politicians were first elected back in 2012. Prior to polling day, then CEO of the Electoral Reform Society, Katie Ghose, warned that: “Those pulling the strings have not done their homework and as a result this election looks primed to degenerate into a complete shambles.”
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The number of “honour-based” abuse offences recorded by English police forces has increased by more than 60% in two years, figures suggest, with concerns voiced that increased polarisation is partly to blame.
Data from 26 out of 39 constabularies approached showed that there were 2,594 cases of “honour-based” abuse – which includes forced marriage, rape, death threats and assault – in 2022, compared with 1,599 in 2020.
The increase, which was even more pronounced since 2016 (up 193%) may be partly explained by more victims coming forward and improved identification of offences by police – but other factors are also believed to be at work.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Opal, the UK National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) intelligence unit on serious organised acquisitive retail crime, is set to enhance operations with the launch of training to combat its growth.
It aims to equip retailers and police forces with the knowledge to effectively refer intelligence on a national scale.
[ more...]
Technology
The first year of live facial recognition technology has been the biggest breakthrough for crime detection since DNA, the Metropolitan Police chief leading its introduction has said.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, the Met’s director of intelligence, Lindsey Chiswick, said that the tool had been a “game-changer”, triggering an arrest every two hours of alleged criminals including rapists, burglars and robbers since it was introduced last April.
A Whitehall source said that it had been so successful that the government was planning to make a policy statement setting out its facial recognition strategy in May or June.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Now that the electoral campaigns for Police and Crime Commissioners are firmly underway, it’s a good time to look at how it’s going and why it’s no surprise that voters aren’t that motivated to vote for them given how complex police governance has become.
There are 41 PCCs in England and Wales and they are all up for election by their local communities on 2 May. This is the fifth PCC election since the role was created in 2011. The first elections were held in 2012 and saw a paltry 15 per cent voter turnout. The reasons for this seem to be a combination of a gloomy and dark November election date that did not coincide with other elections and a lack of understanding or interest from local voters. Elections since then have had a better response and they always do better if they coincide with other local elections, as they do this year.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Worried officers have proposed setting up food banks for police recruits, The Independent can reveal, as one in 10 admit to relying on handouts.
Figures show that record numbers of police are struggling with food poverty and turned to food banks last year as wages stagnated.
One in five police officers is missing meals to get by and almost 10 per cent have used a food bank in the last 12 months, according to a survey of more than 6,000 serving officers.
[ more...]
Police Finances
ce spending on translation services has climbed to more than £19 million a year, new figures show.
On average, forces spent more than £450,000 each on translation and interpretation services in the most recent full financial year of 2022-23.
Campaigners have said taxpayers will be “lost for words” at the increasing sum.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
One of Britain’s most senior policing officials has revealed how he overhauled Interpol’s controversial red notice system as he burnishes his credentials to run the international law enforcement agency.
Stephen Kavanagh said that he had put in place new measures to prevent autocratic regimes from abusing Interpol alerts to detain dissidents.
The alerts, which are effectively “wanted” notices distributed among member states, have previously been used by Russia to try to arrest critics who have blown the whistle on corruption and human rights abuses.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police officers and firefighters should get the same bereavement leave following a miscarriage as NHS workers, a charity has said.
It comes after NHS England unveiled new guidelines that will give staff, including ambulance workers, paid time off work if they suffer a miscarriage before they are six months pregnant.
The Laura Hyde Foundation (LHF) is calling for the policy to be extended to all 999 workers.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Ministers are facing a revolt from Conservative MPs over plans to criminalise homelessness that form part of the government’s flagship crime bill.
Under proposals due to be voted on by MPs before the general election, ministers intend to give police the powers to fine or move on “nuisance” rough sleepers.
But the move has infuriated dozens of Tory MPs on both the left and right of the party who have warned whips they will vote against the measures in the Criminal Justice Bill, which is going through the House of Commons.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
"So, do we have a serial killer in the UK pushing people or drowning people in rivers, canals, lakes, etc?" a TikToker cheerfully asks, in a video that has attracted more than 300,000 views.
She uses mainstream media reports of unconnected women found dead in the water across the country, Google maps, and studies published online to add credibility to the baseless theory on her account, which has more than 90,000 followers and more than two million likes.
People have always been interested in "solving a mystery", says criminal psychologist Dr Amanda Vicary, but now people have access to tools they didn't 30 years ago.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Worried officers have proposed setting up food banks for police recruits, The Independent can reveal, as one in 10 admit to relying on handouts.
Figures show that record numbers of police are struggling with food poverty and turned to food banks last year as wages stagnated.
One in five police officers is missing meals to get by and almost 10 per cent have used a food bank in the last 12 months, according to a survey of more than 6,000 serving officers.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police failed to catch any criminals who stole a car in more than 100 neighbourhoods across England and Wales last year, analysis by the Observer has revealed.
A further 558 neighbourhoods with an average of at least one vehicle crime a week saw less than 2% solved, with a suspect caught and charged, according to figures published on data.police.uk, a site for open data on crime and policing.
In total, about 336,000 vehicle crimes across England and Wales, which includes thefts and break-ins, were closed without a suspect being identified – approximately 85% of all vehicle offences recorded. In some cases, police closed investigations into car theft in less than 24 hours.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Police spending on translation services has climbed to more than £19 million a year, new figures show.
On average, forces spent more than £450,000 each on translation and interpretation services in the most recent full financial year of 2022-23.
Campaigners have said taxpayers will be “lost for words” at the increasing sum.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The migrant nationalities with the highest rates of crime will be revealed in league tables under plans to be considered by ministers.
The proposal, backed by senior Tory MPs, would require the crime rates of each nation’s migrants in England and Wales to be published annually.
Ministers would present a report to Parliament each year detailing the nationality, visa status and asylum status of every offender convicted in English and Welsh courts in the previous 12 months.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A senior police officer has said new Scottish hate crime laws which take effect on Monday could risk damaging public trust in the force.
Ch Supt Rob Hay, from the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS), said people could feel "aggrieved" if they are reported under the legislation and have their details recorded, even if they have not committed a crime.
He also told the BBC the force has not been given any additional resources to cope.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Former sub-postmasters and politicians have called for the Post Office to face a police investigation after BBC News revealed the company knew of flaws in its Horizon IT system.
A document shows bosses and lawyers knew of issues in 2017, but kept arguing sub-postmasters were to blame.
MP Kevan Jones said "the police need to start looking at this" specific point raised in the BBC investigation.
The Post Office earlier said it would be "inappropriate to comment".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
There are fears innocent people could end up on police databases with controversial new hate crime laws in Scotland being weaponised to "settle scores".
Legislation is being introduced on 1 April criminalising threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred based on certain characteristics including age, disability, sexual orientation, and transgender identity.
The rules will apply in people's private homes and online.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Court of Appeal has rejected the Home Secretary’s appeal over a High Court judgment quashing the decision to abolish the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) role in the West Midlands and transfer its policing governance powers to the Mayor of West Midlands.
The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, who brought the legal challenge, said the election for the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands would now go ahead on 2 May 2024.
Mr Justice Swift in the High Court had rejected the Commissioner's contention that the consultation in December 2023 and January 2024 had not been undertaken with an open mind.
However, the judge allowed the challenge on the PCC's second ground, namely whether sufficient information was given in the consultation document to permit appropriate consideration and response.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
BASC has launched a contact platform to allow you to find out where your local Police and Crime Commissioner candidates stand on firearms licensing ahead of PCC elections on 2 May 2024.
In England and Wales, Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are responsible for holding Chief Constables, who in turn are responsible for service delivery, to account. They also preside over the police budget and Policing Plan.
Consequently, PCCs play a vital part in ensuring your local police force fulfils its statutory obligations on firearms licensing and delivers the service in an efficient and effective manner, while protecting public safety.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) says the Angiolini Inquiry is an “urgent call to action”.
Responding to the recommendations in the Inquiry’s Part 1 Report, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens said: “The Angiolini Inquiry made for shocking and sombre reading, a view which I know is shared across policing.
“We must ensure there is nowhere to hide in policing for wrongdoers, that we lead a police service which the public, and especially women and girls, can trust to protect them and that we are uncompromising on the high standards our communities deserve.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The boss of the Bank of England has said it is "not yet" the time to cut interest rates leaving them unchanged for a fifth time in a row at 5.25%.
The widely-expected decision means the cost of borrowing remains at its highest level for 16 years.
Eight of the nine Bank rate setters voted to leave rates unchanged, with only one voting in favour of a cut.
The Bank has kept interest rates at a high level in a bid to slow the pace consumer prices have been rising at.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has hinted a general election could be held in October.
He told a Lords Committee the government's next spending review had to be completed before next April and "if the general election is in October that will mean it's very, very tight".
The latest date an election could legally take place is 28 January 2025
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Policing is facing a “perfect storm”, with fears of a looming staffing crisis as figures reveal more than one in five officers is poised to quit the service.
A major survey of rank and file officers found 22 per cent are planning to resign in the next two years – up from 18 per cent the previous year and just 12 per cent in 2021 – in the wake of complaints of poor pay, declining mental health and low morale.
The stark figures from the Police Federation’s annual survey come after a record figure of almost 9,200 officers left forces last year, with one police figure warning: “They are feeling that it’s just not worth being a police officer any more. We have never known it so bad.”
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
On the shop floor of supermarkets there is one shoplifting tactic which has become so commonplace, staff have given it its own name.
The “banana trick” consists of putting an item through a self-checkout as a cheap fruit or vegetable product and walking out with a much more expensive item.
“Best life hack ever,” one TikTok user claims in a viral video, joking that they managed to get a TV and Playstation through a self-service checkout by logging them as grapes or bananas.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Following today’s Home Office announcement that new synthetic opioids are now under the strictest controls, in line with fentanyl, to prevent drug-related deaths in the UK and ensure anyone caught supplying these substances faces tough penalties, APCC Addictions & Substance Misuse Leads, David Sidwick and Joy Allen, said:
“We welcome the announcement that the government is banning a further 15 synthetic opioids as part of its action to prevent drug deaths. That it is regularly having to react as new synthetics become available, is a warning signal of the pace at which life-threatening drugs are being synthesised and finding their way into our communities, causing serious health harms, risk of overdose and contributing to drug-related crime too. Police and Crime Commissioners are very aware of this emerging threat, and deeply saddened by continuing reports of deaths linked to these drugs.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A man has been sentenced for cyber flashing in England for the first time.
Nicholas Hawkes, 39, from Basildon in Essex, was jailed for 66 weeks at Southend Crown Court today after he sent unsolicited photos of his erect penis to a 15-year-old girl and a woman on 9 February.
The older victim took screenshots of the offending image on WhatsApp and reported Hawkes to the police the same day.
Cyber flashing became a criminal offence in England with the passage of the Online Safety Act on 31 January. It has been a crime in Scotland since 2010.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Three missing children have been found and dozens of vulnerable adults have got their homes back after a police operation to tackle drug crime.
Operation Scorpion involved police forces from across the west of England.
In Wiltshire alone more than 30 people were arrested and £24,000 in cash, two guns, and cocaine and heroin worth £36,000 was seized.
Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Wilkinson called the gangs' actions towards vulnerable people "despicable".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Eight XL bully dogs and more than 600 weapons including guns, nunchucks and knuckledusters have been seized in a week of police raids on county lines drug gangs.
A total of 1,874 suspects were arrested across the country in the week ending March 10, with 245 drug dealing phone lines closed down.
Another 1,653 people who were being exploited by the gangs, just over half of them children, have been brought to safety.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The period after most “fiscal events” ushers in a wave of disappointment. Last week’s budget is no exception.
Conservative MPs have realised that it will not transform the economy and their political prospects. Economists recognise that unreasonable assumptions about future policy flatter the public finances. And then there’s been the host of complaints from lobby groups, MPs, think tanks and trade bodies about all the wonderful policies the chancellor failed to deliver.
After the 2021 budget, I observed a growing trend of PR agencies and campaigners branding each overlooked budget policy as a “missed opportunity”. Since then, I’ve been collating these reactions. The sheer number of “missed opportunities” and the range of issues covered sheds light on the farce that budget days have become and the inflated hopes pinned on them as cure-alls for every social problem.
[ more...]
Justice
A new report from the Victims' Commissioner spotlights the crucial role victim advocates play in supporting victims through the criminal justice process.
“Invaluable” advocates keep victims engaged in the criminal justice system for longer amid long waits for justice, says Victims’ Commissioner.
Advocates praised in extensive new first-hand testimony, with studies showing victims with advocacy support 49% less likely to withdraw from the criminal justice process.
Report highlights challenges facing the sector, including high caseloads exacerbated by Crown Court backlog.
[ more...]
Justice
Ministers have unveiled a new extremism definition under which certain groups will be blocked from government funding and meeting officials.
It will apply to, but not criminalise, groups that promote an ideology based on "violence, hatred or intolerance".
Communities Secretary Michael Gove said a surge in extremism since the Israel-Gaza war posed "a real risk" to the UK.
Civil liberties advocates, community groups and MPs have criticised recent government rhetoric on extremism.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
More than 700 investigations have been launched by Britain’s biggest police force after nearly 3,000 contacts to an anti-corruption hotline in the first 18 months of operation.
The figures for the Metropolitan Police were revealed on Thursday as the police anti-corruption and abuse reporting service was rolled out nationally.
A series of harrowing scandals, including the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens, and then-Pc David Carrick being unmasked as a serial rapist, led the Met to be the first force to start using the service in November 2022.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Inspectors have praised North Yorkshire Police for the progress made after concerns were raised over its performance 12 months ago.
The force was told to make "urgent" improvements after an inspection by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
Now, following a fresh review, HMICFRS said the force had made advances in all the areas of improvement identified.
The force said it had "worked hard" to make the necessary changes.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Thefts of historic stone and metal are on the rise, according to a new report by Historic England and the National Police Chiefs' Council.
It sets out how walls and paving slabs were stolen in Yorkshire and Cheshire, while granite troughs and fountains were taken in Kent and London.
Meanwhile, metal thefts from church roofs were particularly common during the Covid lockdowns, the report added.
Historic England said such thefts "rob us of our collective history".
[ more...]
Police Demand
Plans to transfer policing powers in the West Midlands to the region's mayor are unlawful and will reduce "democratic accountability", the High Court has been told.
Simon Foster, the Labour police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the area, is taking legal action against the government's move to scrap his role ahead of elections in May.
His powers are set to be merged with those of the West Midlands mayor - a role currently held by Conservative Andy Street.
The Home Office, defending against the challenge, said its decision was taken "with an open mind following a lawful consultation and with regard to relevant information".
[ more...]
Justice
The framework was initially launched in December 2021 and set out the “immediate actions” policing committed to take to “build trust and confidence, relentlessly pursue perpetrators and create safer spaces”.
This revised framework, which covers the next three years, is the next step in ensuring policing is focused on outcomes that make a real difference to tackling the epidemic of VAWG.
In February 2023, the Home Secretary included VAWG within the Strategic Policing Requirement, which means that the national policing response to VAWG should be on par with terrorism and serious and organised crime.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A new report on how police forces in England and Wales are cracking down on retail crime has revealed successful initiatives on keeping stores safer.
Led by Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Katy Bourne through her role as the Association of PCCs’ lead for retail and business crime, she accepted that “there is still more work to do”, and backed Labour’s call for a new offence in England and Wales for assaulting shop workers. She also pushed for more prolific shoplifters to be monitored with electronic tags.
[ more...]
Technology
A trial called Project Eagle X is testing remotely-piloted drones for emergencies in Norfolk - amid questions over privacy and their crime-fighting powers
[ more...]
Police Finances
The cost of policing Gaza-related protests in London has reached over £32 million, as major marches are planned across the capital on Saturday.
A Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) march will take place in central London, with this weekend being the fifth major demonstration of the year so far.
The group said it was expecting “hundreds of thousands of people” to march from Hyde Park Corner to the US Embassy.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The government has failed to fund research into the escalation of sex crimes, despite promising to do so in the wake of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
In 2021, the Home Office pledged to “take forward work looking at the escalation of sexual offending” as part of its plan to tackle violence against women and girls. The plan, which had the tagline “the safety of women and girls across the country is our priority”, was informed by 180,000 public submissions after Everard was killed by serving police officer Wayne Couzens.
[ more...]
Prisons
Fewer than 250 spaces are left in men’s jails in England and Wales, The Telegraph can reveal, as the Justice Secretary sanctioned the biggest early release scheme from prisons in nearly 20 years.
Alex Chalk announced emergency measures to release hundreds of burglars, shoplifters and violent criminals up to 60 days early to tackle the crisis.
He also unveiled plans to slash the number of foreign prisoners – now standing at over 10,000 – by refusing tourist visa applications from countries that fail to take back their criminals earmarked for deportation.
[ more...]
Prisons
Nottinghamshire Police has been put in special measures and told to "urgently produce an improvement plan" by a watchdog.
The move follows an inspection by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
The force will now be subject to an "enhanced level of monitoring", known as the "engage" process.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Drones will be increasingly used as “first responders” when the public report incidents to emergency services, under plans announced by the chancellor in the spring budget on Wednesday.
Jeremy Hunt told MPs £230m would be set aside for police to spend on “time- and money-saving technology” such as unmanned flying vehicles and video technology.
The hope is that drones will provide accurate information on the potential scale of an incident reported by a member of the public who has called 999.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Dr Richard Carter suspects that the authoritarian nature of policing attracts people who are unsuitable for situations where empathy and human consideration are needed.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The chancellor will seek to appease a raft of powerful critics in the last Budget before the general election.
Jeremy Hunt is expected to set out plans aimed at reducing tax that will appease backbenchers demanding cuts in personal taxation while meeting demands from the International Monetary Fund for the UK to focus on long-term stability.
It follows a weekend of negotiations between the chancellor and the prime minister – with the PM making clear he thinks there is room to put more cash in the public’s pockets.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The government should avoid “prioritising politically driven tax cuts while decimating services” during Wednesday’s Budget, public sector unions have said.
[ more...]
Justice
Police have failed to solve a single burglary in nearly half of all neighbourhoods in England and Wales in the past three years despite pledging to attend the scene of every domestic break-in to boost detection rates.
A Telegraph analysis of police data shows that no burglaries were solved in 48 per cent of neighbourhoods – areas covering between 1,000 and 3,000 people – in the past three years.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Budget will contain an £800m package of technology reforms aimed at freeing up NHS and police time, the Treasury has announced.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said ahead of the 6 March announcement that there was "too much waste in the system".
As part of the reforms, AI will be used to cut NHS scan times by a third and the police will deploy drones to incidents such as traffic collisions.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Chancellor is to launch a £300 million tax raid on second-home owners who make money from holiday lets. He will reportedly abolish a series of tax perks for landlords who rent out their properties to short-term holidaymakers rather than long-term tenants, arguing it will help tackle the housing shortage in coastal areas and holiday hotspots.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Leading economists have warned that Jeremy Hunt will “cost the country dear” if he gambles on pre-election cuts to tax and spending in this week’s Budget. Former Treasury advisers Dimitri Zenghelis and Anna Valero, backed by other economists, said the Chancellor should focus on the long-term national interest with measures to spur investment and growth.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Senior Salaries Review Body must consider evidence from a variety of sources when giving advice on pay, including the Home Office.
This document is the evidence submission from the Home Office and covers chief police officers in England and Wales
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Local Government Association (LGA) has welcomed news that councillors will for the first time have a named police contact to help with security issues.
The Government has committed £31m to improve security provisions for all locally elected representatives over the next year and to ‘protect the UK’s democratic processes from disruption’.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Police in Guernsey are being given training to challenge discrimination in the workplace.
Guernsey Police said it was putting officers and staff on the Upstander Training Programme, which has been designed by the UK College of Policing.
The digital course aims to highlight what inappropriate behaviour is and how to challenge it while at work.
Police said the training would help maintain "a culture that is fair and equal".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Transgender police officers will only be allowed to strip search suspects of the same biological sex under changes being considered by the Government.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, has ordered an urgent review of strip-search rules after it emerged that national police guidance allowed transgender officers to carry out intimate searches of people of the opposite biological sex.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has withdrawn the guidance, which allowed transgender men self-identifying as female or with gender recognition certificates to strip-search women. It is now conducting a “thorough” review of its rules.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Jeremy Hunt is expected to use next week’s Budget to cut national insurance rather than income tax as he announces a new levy on vaping. The Chancellor has significantly scaled back his planned cuts after official forecasts suggested he will have much less money to spend than expected. The two main tax cuts expected in the Budget are a 1 percentage-point reduction in employee national insurance, at a cost of about £4.5 billion a year, and an extension of the fuel duty freeze at a cost of £1 billion a year.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Government should not cut taxes in the upcoming Budget, unless it can spell out how it will afford them, a leading think tank has warned. The Chancellor has hinted he would like to lower taxes in what could be the last Budget before a general election. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the case for tax cuts was "weak". The Government said it would not comment on whether further cuts to tax would be "affordable in the Budget".
[ more...]
Police Finances
Ministers must do more to prevent the Israel-Gaza protests from “draining” official resources after policing the events cost £25 million, a report has concluded.
The figure covers pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests from October 7 to December 17 last year. Scotland Yard has spent almost £19 million policing London rallies, with another £6.5 million spent outside the capital.
[ more...]
Justice
A scheme to allow prisoners to be released early because of a lack of space has been extended indefinitely, suggests Sky News. Ministers have also expanded the number of jails letting out prisoners before the end of their sentence, according to leaked documents. Originally, the early release scheme - known as the End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) - applied to 21 jails, but has since been "updated" to apply in others. The scheme, outlined in October, allowed prisoners to be released up to 18 days before the end of their sentence to reduce an "acute and exceptional demand" on prison places.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Britain’s stretched public services will buckle under the weight of the spending cuts being planned for after the election, economists have warned, as the Chancellor reportedly prepares for another round of tax reductions in next week’s Budget. Experts say the level of public sector spending pencilled in for the next parliament would mean cuts equivalent to those undertaken by David Cameron’s government from 2010 to 2015, with some warning the next government will not be able to implement them and be forced either to raise taxes or borrow more to fund emergency spending.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A serving Metropolitan Police officer has appeared in court charged with rape and stalking.
Pc Jake Cummings, 23, from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, appeared at Hatfield Magistrates' Court on Friday, police said.
Cummings is accused of rape, two counts of stalking, two counts of controlling and coercive behaviour, and possession of an offensive weapon.
The alleged offences, which occurred while he was off duty, relate to one female victim in Hertfordshire.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A Metropolitan police detective initially sacked for racism has been reinstated and sent on a leadership course, the Guardian has learned.
DS Neil Buckmaster was dismissed in 2021 after a discipline panel found him guilty of gross misconduct. The panel heard he had used racist terms, which he gave to avatars while playing an online football game.
A public complaint led to an investigation, and Buckmaster was sacked and placed on a list barring him from employment in policing, Scotland Yard announced.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A London “under siege” with “criminals ruling the streets”. That’s not the plot of a comic book, but rather the picture that mayoral candidate Susan Hall painted of the capital in an article for the Express on Saturday.
Sadiq Khan, who as the mayor for London, also acts as police and crime commissioner for the city, is often targeted with accusations that he has allowed crime to spiral. But Guardian analysis of government data shows the reality is more nuanced.
According the Crime Survey for England and Wales, someone is actually less likely to be a victim of crime in London than they are across the country as a whole. In the capital, 14.9% of people experienced a crime either to their person or their household in the year ending September 2023, compared with 15.7% nationally. But what about different types of crime?
[ more...]
Prisons
Foreign shoplifters, thieves and drug dealers are to be deported rather than prosecuted as part of radical plans by the Justice Secretary to free up prison spaces.
Alex Chalk told The Telegraph that lower level foreign offenders will be spared jail and instead given “conditional cautions” under which they will be expelled and banned from returning to Britain.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, has been put in charge of delivering the deportation scheme which aims to reduce the 3,300 foreign prisoners on remand who have been charged but not yet convicted.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A special constable has been sacked for viewing body-worn camera footage of two victim’s final moments following the Nottingham attacks, it has emerged.
The man has been barred from ever serving in the police after he was found to have viewed the footage of students Grace O’Malley Kumar and Barnaby Webber shortly after they were stabbed, The Independent understands.
School caretaker Ian Coates, 65, was also knifed to death and three others were run over by paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane in the horrific city centre attack last June.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A suspended chief constable's gross misconduct hearing for allegedly misrepresenting his military service is to be heard in private.
Nick Adderley faces the proceedings by Northamptonshire Police following an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
He was accused of wearing a Falklands War medal he did not earn and falsely stating he was a Royal Navy officer.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A shipment of £450m worth of cocaine has been seized at Southampton Port in a "huge hit" to crime cartels.
It's the largest-ever seizure of a haul of class A drugs in the UK, with National Crime Agency (NCA) and Border Force officers finding 5.7 tonnes in a container carrying bananas from South America on 8 February.
This far eclipses the previous record of 3.7 tonnes discovered at the same port in 2022 and 3.2 tonnes found on board the tugboat MV Hamal in Scotland in 2015.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Britain’s biggest police force is facing a “deeply concerning” shortfall in officer numbers amid recruitment struggles.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the force will be 1,400 short at the end of March, and 2,650 short by March 2025 at current application and recruitment levels.
Under the national programme to replace 20,000 police officer jobs cut during austerity measures from 2010, the Home Office has allocated funding for the Met to employ 35,415 full-time equivalent officers.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
More than 6,600 arrests were made in the latest national Christmas drink and drug-drive police operation.
The campaign known as ‘Operation Limit’ has been run nationally since 2022 and brings police forces together in what the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) describes as a “concerted effort to remove drink and drug drivers from our roads”.
In total, 49,812 breath tests were conducted with 9.5 per cent of those testing positive, failed or refused.
Almost 50 (48.5) per cent of the 6,846 tested for drugs were positive.
[ more...]
Police Finances
An unprecedented number of women are being investigated by police on suspicion of illegally ending a pregnancy, the BBC has been told.
Abortion provider MSI says it knows of up to 60 criminal inquiries in England and Wales since 2018, compared with almost zero before.
Some investigations followed natural pregnancy loss, File on 4 found.
Pregnancy loss is investigated only if credible evidence suggests a crime, the National Police Chiefs' Council says.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A man has been jailed for four months for possession and intention to supply nitrous oxide in the first prosecution since it became an offence.
Essex Police found canisters alongside ketamine and £38,995 in cash after Thomas Salton was pulled over in Southernhay, Basildon, in December.
The drugs were discovered in party bags with balloons and crackers in the boot of his Range Rover.
Nitrous oxide was made a Class C drug in November.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
£40,000 has gone into the new initiative, which it's hoped will assist Bedfordshire policing teams with recovering stolen agricultural equipment.
The Bedfordshire OPCC has invested in a new scheme that will enable farmers to forensically mark agricultural equipment at half the price.
It has been funded by the Safer Streets project which encompasses tackling neighbourhood crime issues.
The initiative, worth £40,000, will see discounts available to Bedfordshire farmers on the industries official CESAR System, incorporating Datatag technology – a scheme that has already assisted policing teams across the country to recover stolen agricultural equipment.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Domestic abuse charities have warned that services will have to be scaled back due to a reduction in funding. Women’s Aid has said that the non statutory nature of them put them at greater risk as councils looked to manage budgetary pressures.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The West Midlands police and crime commissioner (PCC) has announced he is taking the home secretary to court over plans to scrap his role and transfer his powers to the region’s mayor.
Simon Foster, who took over as PCC in the West Midlands in 2021, said he had applied for a judicial review to challenge what he described as a “hostile takeover of PCC powers by the mayor”.
[ more...]
Technology
The early findings of a joint inspection by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and HM Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services into case building by police and the CPS has found bureaucratic processes and IT challenges as well as an inexperienced workforce are creating barriers and tensions between the two organisations – but the closer working relationships of specialist teams could bring real benefits, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
[ more...]
Justice
Police are failing to get justice for mental health patients who have suffered alleged sexual violence in hospitals as new figures show only a handful of complaints end up in criminal charges.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Serial rapist David Carrick has been stripped of his state-funded Metropolitan Police pension.
Carrick, who was unmasked as one of the UK's worst sex offenders and convicted of crimes against 12 women over 17 years, will lose 65% of his pension, estimated to be more than £10,000 a year, which was contributed by the force.
If he is released, he can still receive 35%, his personal financial contribution.
[ more...]
Justice
Victims of crime are waiting up to five years for their cases to go to court, the chief inspector of prisons has said, amid Covid backlogs that have led one in six prisoners being held on remand.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said he had recently encountered one prisoner who had been in jail on remand for three years, and had received reports of others waiting up to five years before facing trial.
The number of people being held on remand without having been tried or sentenced has risen to 16,200, a 50-year high and up from 9,000 in 2019 before the Covid pandemic.
[ more...]
Police Finances
Humberside Police has been awarded £1,392,980 to combat anti-social behaviour.
The government has said £66m will be spent in England and Wales in 2024-25 to enable each force to deploy uniformed patrols in “hotspot” areas.
The neighbouring Lincolnshire force will receive £1m.
Each force has been given until 8 March 2024 to submit proposals for how the money would be spent.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The government has announced that every police force in England and Wales will receive at least £1 million to ramp up patrols to tackle violence and disorder, targeted in areas with high levels of anti-social behaviour.
It is estimated that the funding - £66 million in total - will enable each force to deploy uniformed patrols for up to 20,000 hours in “hotspot” areas each year, helping drive down crime and boost public confidence in their local force. The announcement follows the successful piloting of this approach in 10 areas, which saw more than 80,000 hours of patrols in the six months since it launched.
[ more...]
Technology
A charity that helps people worried about their own thoughts or behaviour says an increasing number of callers are feeling confused about the ethics of viewing AI child abuse imagery.
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF) says AI images are acting as a gateway.
The charity is warning that creating or viewing such images is still illegal even if the children are not real.
[ more...]
Justice
Shoplifters should be spared prosecution and jail to help tackle court backlogs and overcrowded prisons, says the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Sir Max Hill said the Government should consider dealing with acquisitive crime such as shoplifting outside the court system through schemes designed to tackle the causes of the criminality.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
People spending less, doctors' strikes and a fall in school attendance dragged the UK into recession at the end of last year, official figures show.
The economy shrank by a larger than expected 0.3% between October and December, after it had already contracted between July and September.
The UK is in recession if it fails to grow for two successive quarters.
The figures raise questions over whether Rishi Sunak has met his pledge made last January to grow the economy.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England's governor has said UK inflation remaining unchanged is "encouraging", but he hinted it would not mean earlier interest rate cuts.
Andrew Bailey said inflation, which measures how prices rise over time, staying at 4% last month "pretty much leaves us where we were".
The figure surprised experts who had expected a rise in energy bills to push prices up at a faster rate.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
People spending less, doctors' strikes and a fall in school attendance dragged the UK into recession at the end of last year, official figures show.
The economy shrank by a larger than expected 0.3% between October and December, after it had already contracted between July and September.
The UK is in recession if it fails to grow for two successive quarters.
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Justice
Men who kill their partners through “rough sex” face longer sentences under a Government crackdown on violence against women and girls.
Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, is to introduce legislation that would make rough sex an aggravating factor if it caused the death of an offender’s sexual partner.
Judges would be empowered to increase the sentence of the offender for causing death through “abusive, degrading or dangerous” sexual behaviour. It would mean anyone convicted of manslaughter, for example, would get an additional period in jail on top of their normal sentence.
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Police Demand
Shop workers feel like "targets" the BBC has heard, as reports of violence and abuse have soared.
Shop assistant John from Dundee said: "It's almost a daily occurrence now where you are shouted at or sworn at".
Violence and abuse against shop workers rose to 1,300 incidents a day last year, according to a trade body.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) criticised the "woefully inadequate" action taken by the government to address the "crisis".
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Police Finances
A one per cent weekly rise in council tax could help fix neighbourhood policing in England and Wales, a think tank has said.
Onward has proposed that the 43 police forces in England and Wales need to recruit 19,000 neighbourhood officers to restore numbers to 2012 levels.
The think tank said it would meet the public demand for more visible policing to help curb persistent crimes, such as anti-social behaviour, theft and burglary.
The Government has added 20,000 more police officers in the past three years, but the number covering local neighbourhood beats is still 10 per cent down on 2012.
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Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police has scrapped its gangs violence matrix (GVM) after more than a decade over concerns about the scheme's "disproportionality".
The GVM database was used by the Met to identify those at risk of committing, or being a victim of, gang-related violence in London.
It is being replaced by an existing but "adapted" violence harm assessment (VHA), the force said.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said Londoners would "judge this new approach on results".
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Justice
Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford, has been cleared of rape allegations against him after a thorough investigation by the Metropolitan Police.
However, this victory for Rosindell raises serious concerns about the handling of the case and the broader implications for justice in our society.
Although the importance of thorough investigations cannot be overstated, it is evident that Rosindell’s experience with the Met has been marred by delays and questionable decisions. As someone who has endured the shortcomings of police investigations, notably in Operation Midland, I cannot help but feel a sense of déjà vu, particularly when I have been told by three Met commissioners that lessons will and have been learnt.
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Police and Crime General
The policing chief for retail crime has called on Meta to force users of its Facebook Marketplace platform to verify their identity and location to thwart an epidemic of shoplifting.
Chief Superintendent Alex Goss, head of retail crime at the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said that Meta and other online platforms needed to do more to “think about criminality” when designing their platforms.
Figures out today show that police forces are attending almost twice as many shoplifting cases reported to them since they signed up to a new commitment in October to prioritise it.
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Technology
Launched on Monday (February 12), Stop! Think Fraud is backed by leading counter-fraud experts to provide “consistent, clear and robust” anti-fraud advice to the public.
City of London Police, the national lead force for fraud, hopes it will generate a much greater understanding of what has become the most prevalent crime in the UK.
Fraud accounts for around 40 per cent of all crime in England and Wales, with an estimated 3.2 million offences each year.
While latest data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales shows it has reduced by 13 per cent over the past year, the estimated cost of fraud to society is £6.8 billion in England and Wales.
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Police Demand
Police failed to attend 40 per cent of shoplifting incidents where there was violence, despite an agreement to prioritise such offences, official figures show.
Officers also failed to attend in a quarter of cases where the shoplifter was detained by shop or security staff, according to the data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).
The figures represented a significant improvement on last year but revealed big performance differences between forces, with some achieving 100 per cent attendance rates for violent shoplifting incidents or where the offender was detained.
The figures were based on 31 of the 43 forces in England and Wales who were each asked to review 50 shop theft crimes from Dec 1 last year.
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Justice
Criminals are gaming the system by pleading not guilty and relying on crippling trial delays to evade justice, The Independent has been told.
Laying bare the extent of the crisis in the courts, figures obtained by this publication suggest the number of cases waiting more than three years for a verdict has skyrocketed at least sevenfold since 2019 to exceed 1,280 last June.
As delays have soared, the proportion of early guilty pleas has plummeted – falling by nearly half in four years – as suspects try to manipulate the system.
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Police Finances
Local Authorities in England are facing the possibility of a deadline to publish overdue accounts before September. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has announced that it plans to bring in a “statutory backstop” in an effort to clear a high number of audit opinions by September 30. The Department said the backlog had reached an “unacceptable level”, which sat at over 700 at the end of 2023. In its report in June last year, the Public Accounts Committee noted that the market had been severely constrained, with fewer than 100 “key audit partners” registered to carry out the work across England.
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Police Demand
Protesters who wear masks could face arrest, up to a month in jail and a £1,000 fine under proposed measures that human rights campaigners claim are pandering to “culture war nonsense”.
Police in England and Wales will be given the power to arrest people if they are wearing face coverings at specific demonstrations, the Home Office has said.
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Police and Crime General
Plans to merge the West Midlands mayor and police and crime commissioner roles have moved a step closer.
Conservative Mayor Andy Street has given his formal consent to the merger, which means the decision will now be sent back to parliament which should have the final say.
But there is still opposition to the move from existing Labour West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster, who the BBC understands is considering his legal options following the latest news.
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Police and Crime General
The Home Secretary spoke at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners general meeting on 7 February 2024.
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Police and Crime General
Apparent "duplicate responses" to a public consultation have fuelled an ongoing row over scrapping the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) role.
The official Home Office consultation, external into plans to merge the role with that of the West Midlands mayor showed 50% of replies to a survey of about 7,000 people disagreed with the move while 46% agreed.
The picture was further confused after it emerged a total of 927 responses were identified as "duplicates" – all of which disagreed with the move to merge the roles.
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Recruitment and Retention
An inspector who sold his police trousers for £4 online has had his rank reduced after being found guilty of gross misconduct at a hearing.
Owen Hurley of Hertfordshire Police admitted he sold the item on Vinted, a second-hand selling app.
He told the misconduct hearing the trousers had been in his wardrobe at home for "a long time" and he wanted to "make space" after redecorating.
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Police and Crime General
Police in England and Wales have failed to record the racial identity of nearly two-thirds of people referred to the Prevent counter-extremism programme, despite questions over whether it discriminates against minority ethnic groups.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said details on the race or ethnicity of 33,116 people referred to the scheme over eight years could not be accessed. Government figures show that there were 51,204 Prevent referrals from April 2015 to April 2023.
The findings come after William Shawcross’s much-criticised review of the strategy which places public bodies, including schools and the police, under a legal duty to identify people who may turn to extremism and intervene in their lives before an attack takes place.
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Police and Crime General
Eight Metropolitan police officers are under investigation after a black 16-year-old was stopped six times in five months, on each occasion with nothing criminal found.
The police watchdog is investigating after the case triggered claims of racial profiling and a friend of the boy’s family said he had been left traumatised.
The Guardian has learned that one stop took place outside the boy’s mother’s house, another outside his grandmother’s house, one in a chicken shop and another by Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
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Police Demand
James Cleverly has ordered police chiefs to present him with “hard evidence” that they are treating neighbourhood policing as a priority. The Home Secretary has set out his vision to “get back to core policing” and said that bringing back the presence of officers in communities was a vital part of restoring the public’s trust in the police.
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Justice
Abuse ruins lives. It is a stark reality that sexual and domestic abuse have a devastating impact, particularly when it comes to children. The effects are intricate and far-reaching, often lingering with victims for a lifetime.
It’s not a ground-breaking revelation to say that traumas like sexual abuse and domestic abuse in childhood have lasting consequences. Experts have known this for decades, understanding the profound influence these experiences can have on people’s lives.
With the right support, children and young people who have endured abuse can find a path to recovery, but the key lies in ensuring that the necessary support is readily available.
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Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has been accused of bowing to political pressure by banning pro-Palestine demonstrators from ending their march this Saturday with a rally outside Downing Street.
The marches in London have regularly ended both at Trafalgar Square and near Downing Street on Whitehall to allow the huge crowds to safely disperse from two locations.
Organisers were told on Wednesday that the police would not allow the expected 300,000 demonstrators to rally on Whitehall this Saturday, however. According to Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), senior officers liaising with them claimed to have been unable to consult with government offices and businesses about the disruption.
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Justice
Victims Commissioner, Baroness Newlove, has said that the Victims and Prisoners Bill, set to return to parliament this week, is not strong enough. The Ministry of Justice has committed to inspect agencies which fail a new proposed code of conduct for supporting victims of crime and better oversight. Baroness Newlove has called for this code of conduct to be front and centre of the Bill and for the code to become law, saying currently it is just guidance which will not assist those without legal rights.
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Police Demand
Bedfordshire Police said its new 999 policy "Right Care, Right Person" (RCRP) would allow officers to focus on the jobs they have been "trained" for.
The change, which came into force from Wednesday, sees 999 callers with mental health issues turned away by police unless there is a risk to life or a crime has been committed.
The force said it had to deal with 14,000 welfare calls in 2023.
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Police and Crime General
Banning “zombie” knives and machetes will not end the trauma of knife crime, the founder of an academy trust has warned, after two pupils at one of his schools were fatally stabbed over the weekend.
The Rev Steve Chalke, of Oasis academies, said the killing of Mason Rist, 15, and his 16-year-old friend Max Dixon in south Bristol was “absolutely devastating” for family and friends, their school and the wider community in Knowle West.
Knife crime, he said, was a “tragic symptom” of a wider crisis affecting young people – made worse by Covid – and called for earlier, therapeutic intervention for children as young as five who are already struggling in school, and support for their parents.
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Police and Crime General
A police station in Cornwall has been granted planning permission for a £3m redevelopment.
Camborne Police Station, which was built in the 1960s, will get a new police enquiry desk, new windows and a new roof.
Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez said the work was "desperately needed".
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Police Finances
The Premier League is to pay £7 million to police forces as “an unconditional gift” but sources insist the cash is not a sweetener to ensure matches in prime-time TV slots can be played.
The one-off payment — said to be for “recognition and thanks” to the police — will be split among all forces that have a Premier League club in their area, with more paid to those such as the Metropolitan Police, which has several top-flight clubs.
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Police Finances
Sussex Police faces a budget shortfall of more than £8m, even if it increases its share of council tax by the maximum allowed by the government.
The force can raise its share of the council tax precept by £13 a year for a Band D property in the 2024-25 financial year, though this has yet to be approved.
Chief Constable Jo Shiner said the rise was "absolutely fundamental".
Without it the force would have to make "quite destructive savings", she said.
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Recruitment and Retention
More than 150 police officers and staff in England and Wales were found guilty of crimes last year after a complaint or misconduct investigation – up 70% compared with the year before.
Home Office figures show that, in the year to April 2023, 115 officers and 43 staff were found guilty of crimes including sexual offences and violence against the person – up from 68 and 25 the year before.
The figures will have included the serial rapist and ex-Metropolitan police officer David Carrick, who was jailed for life in February 2023 after pleading guilty to 85 serious offences including 48 rapes.
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Police Finances
Police officers made "sickening" comments about an assault victim while watching body-worn video showing her groin, the BBC has learned.
The woman's body was exposed when she was filmed suffering from a seizure. Three Thames Valley Police PCs later watched the footage without reason.
None of the officers faced a misconduct hearing but a student officer who reported them was later dismissed.
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Police and Crime General
A school will employ a sniffer dog and install detectors in its toilets to stop pupils vaping.
City of Norwich Secondary School said a “passive deterrence dog” will be in place to sniff out vapes for one day next month.
Heads at the school, which has 1,720 pupils, said they would also install vape detectors in the toilets, carry out student bag searches and add staff patrols.
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Technology
An expansion of a county's CCTV network will help to fight crime, police have said.
Since 2022, CCTV has helped Cumbria Constabulary investigate hundreds of crimes and missing person searches.
The county's network has now been improved with about 40 new cameras added to provide wider coverage and clearer images.
Deputy Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Mike Johnson said the upgrade would be "a great additional resource" as it was not possible to "put a cop on every street corner".
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Police Finances
A police and crime commissioner (PCC) has proposed increasing the policing element of council tax bills.
Darryl Preston has requested a rise of £12.96 per year for households in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
The proposal is just four pence shy of the maximum £13 rise that is permitted.
It would mean Band D households would pay £285.48 in the next financial year, up from £272.52. The plans are due to be discussed on Wednesday.
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Police Demand
More than 200,000 burglaries went unsolved in England and Wales last year, the latest data has shown.
Three in four of all break-ins went unsolved in the year to September 2023, with only 6 per cent resulting in a suspect being charged.
The total number of unsolved burglaries stood at 213,814 – a rise of 4 per cent compared to the previous year – with an average of 586 a day.
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Recruitment and Retention
Scrutiny following a police shooting is the greatest barrier to officers joining a firearms unit, research has found.
A survey of more than 2,487 non-armed police officers from across England and Wales found that 98.1 per cent were concerned about how they would be treated after discharging their weapons if they were to join an armed unit.
The research was commissioned by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and carried out by researchers at Liverpool John Moores University at the start of 2023, before the case of NX121, the police officer who was charged with murder over the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba, in southeast London in September last year.
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Police Finances
Procurement scrutiny hits the Airwaves
Can’t get enough of rows over public sector procurement deals going badly?
Peers in the House of Lords are starting the week by delivering fresh scrutiny of the plans to replace the emergency services Airwave system.
The idea was to create one system for the three Blue Light services. It’s a critical issue since the Grenfell Tower disaster but it hasn’t gone well.
Labour peer Lord Harris of Haringey will lead the debate on the cost estimate and full operational launch of Emergency Services Network critical communications system. The back story: it’s eight years late and has cost £11bn so far. The supplier of the current system is also being paid to keep it going.
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Police Finances
The government is considering allowing local authorities more freedom to use capital resources to reduce the pressure on their revenue budgets amid dire warnings over the sector’s sustainability, but caution is needed, Nicole Wood, president of the Society of County Treasurers, told PF.
While giving authorities additional freedom over their finances is welcome, she said, it is arguably the “wrong time” to introduce potentially high-risk capital changes at a time when local audit capacity is low – as evidenced by a huge backlog.
“There has been non-compliance with the Prudential Code; whether that is through omission or commission, it is a matter of fact that that has happened,” Wood said.
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Police Finances
Surrey's police and crime commissioner has said the allocation of government funding for police is "unfair".
Lisa Townsend said the Surrey force gets "proportionately the lowest level" of grant in the country to cover its costs.
She made the comments in a letter to the government after funding was announced last month.
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Police Finances
Households across Nottinghamshire will be asked to pay more council tax next year to support the police.
The proposed 4.8% increase would bring in an extra £4.3m for Nottinghamshire Police over the 12 months from April compared to the current financial year.
Police and crime commissioner, Caroline Henry, said she was "mindful" of the burden this placed on taxpayers.
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Justice
The concept couldn’t have been sexier: a real-life Line of Duty. That’s how film-makers Hugo Pettitt and Ashley Francis-Roy pitched their documentary series to Channel 4 commissioners and the top brass of Avon and Somerset police, whose corridors they wanted to shoot inside. It was late 2020, TV audiences were awaiting the final series of AC12 bent-copper hunting. In their docuseries, Pettitt and Francis-Roy would be embedded within Avon and Somerset’s very own professional standards department and counter-corruption unit – their cameras granted access for the first series of its kind involving a British police force.
“We expected secret squirrel-style cases,” Pettitt said, “maybe without the explosions and guns, but still an enjoyable journey of officers solving cases and crimes, rooting out individual officers.” While precise formats differ, access-driven law-enforcement shows like this have become a mainstay of modern British television. Major returning series including 24 Hours in Police Custody (also Channel 4), BBC One’s The Met, Special Ops: Crime Squad (UKTV) and Sky’s The Force – alongside a constant stream of limited series and single documentaries – ever-popular with audiences, drawing out drama by following criminal investigations, or bobbies on the beat.
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Police and Crime General
A police and crime commissioner has said it is "not possible to eradicate" misconduct completely among officers.
Avon and Somerset PCC Mark Shelford made the comment ahead of a Channel 4 series, To Catch A Copper, which goes behind-the-scenes at the force.
The documentary-makers film how police look into cases against its own officers.
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Police Demand
Police forces are failing to attend four out of five calls to shoplifting offences, data obtained by The Telegraph shows.
The proportion of shoplifting offences where police forces send an officer has fallen from 36 per cent in 2019 to just 19.7 per cent in 2023, according to the figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws.
National data last week showed shoplifting offences have risen by more than 30 per cent in a year to a record 1,300 a day but only one in seven are being solved.
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Police and Crime General
In many ways, Gavin Stephens is an old-fashioned police officer. Now chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which brings together police leaders across the UK, he is at the forefront of discussions with the Government about the future of policing: investment in facial recognition and artificial intelligence, but his core passion remains neighbourhood policing, which he calls the “bread and butter” of crime-fighting and has been the focus of much of his three-decade career.
“It’s my belief that’s the bedrock of what we do,” he says. “Local relationships will always be important for everything, from antisocial behaviour through to countering terrorism. Everything happens in a neighbourhood somewhere.”
Stephens knows that the impact of one crime can be felt far more widely than in the area it happened. The murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021 by a serving Metropolitan Police officer in London decimated trust in the police nationally and generated reverberations that are still being felt three years later.
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Police and Crime General
A Labour UK Government should pave the way for the transfer of policing powers to the Welsh administration and avoid adopting a “King Canute” stance on devolution, Mark Drakeford has suggested.
The outgoing First Minister said colleagues in Westminster would have a “responsibility” to show the “journey has begun” towards handing Cardiff more control of the system across the border if they win this year’s election.
In 2022, a report led by former prime minister Gordon Brown said the next UK Labour government should “embark upon the devolution of youth justice and the probation service”.
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Police Demand
Knife crime is rising faster in rural areas than in other parts of Britain, police figures show.
The figures were revealed on Wednesday as Sir Keir Starmer prepared to pledge that no young person caught with a knife will escape sanction under Labour.
Offences of knife possession have doubled in the past decade in rural areas, compared with a 60 per cent rise in urban police force areas, according to Labour analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.
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Police and Crime General
More than two million crimes have gone unsolved in a year — as knife crime and shoplifting soar, figures show.
Culprits in England and Wales got away scot-free nearly 6,000 times a day in the year to September.
Home Office statistics reveal that a staggering 2.18million offences were closed with no criminal identified — a nine per cent jump on the year before.
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Police and Crime General
The Conservative government has announced its third attempted crackdown on zombie knives since 2016 in a bid to close “loopholes” in its previous efforts to ban the weapon.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, defended the government’s record on tackling knife crime as he announced fresh legislation set to be introduced to parliament on Thursday.
Zombie-style knives were first banned in 2016 when the government defined them as having a cutting edge, a serrated edge and “images or words” that suggest violence.
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Recruitment and Retention
More than 600 police community support officers have been taken off the streets in just one year, Home Office statistics have revealed.
The total number of PCSOs have been "slashed into oblivion" under the Tories, dropping to just 7,651 across England and Wales. When the Tories came into power in 2010 PCSO numbers were at 16,918, but have been falling ever since.
Some 611 fewer PCSOs were on the streets in September 2023 compared to the previous year. The hardest hit police force was Kent, which saw its PCSOs numbers down by 67% in just 12 months. This brought their total number of PCSOs to around 70, down from more than 200 in the previous September.
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Police Demand
A police force in Wales seized one of the highest amounts of cocaine per capita in the UK last year, it has been revealed. Officers across the UK seized record amounts of the Class A drug during raids carried out across the UK and our interactive map reveals the areas with the biggest problems.
Dyfed-Powys Police recorded the third highest amount of cocaine drug seizures UK wide with 574 per million of population. It was a significantly higher amount than South Wales Police, which recorded 364 drug seizures per million of population. Gwent Police had the lowest amount of Welsh cocaine drug seizures per million of population with 203. North Wales Police, meanwhile, recorded 561 seizures per million of population.
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Recruitment and Retention
Police chiefs have said a mass screening of more than 300,000 UK police officers, staff and volunteers has led to nine criminal investigations.
The records of 307,000 police employees were checked against a national intelligence database in an exercise after the cases of Wayne Couzens, the officer who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, and David Carrick, who became one of Britain’s worst convicted serial rapists, despite repeated concerns being raised about him.
Police gave very little detail about the alleged wrongdoing unearthed by the exercise, citing privacy concerns, but said sexual assault was among the allegations.
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Technology
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will enhance the threat posed by ransomware over the coming years, the UK’s cyber security agency has warned.
A new report from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) – which is a part of GCHQ – said the technology is lowering the barrier of entry to novice cyber criminals.
As a result, AI is enabling unskilled online actors to carry out more effective cyber attacks, the report says.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police failed to catch the Nottingham killer for nine months when he was wanted for another offence before he stabbed three strangers to death.
Nottinghamshire Police issued a warrant for the arrest of Valdo Calocane in September 2022 after he failed to appear in court in connection with an assault on an officer who was taking him to hospital for mental health treatment.
But officers failed to track him down and make the arrest, leaving Calocane free to launch his fatal attacks on Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates in June last year.
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Police Finances
Just Stop Oil eco-zealots slammed for their "cheek" in costing the Metropolitan Police millions of pounds as they tried to bring London to a standstill.
Just Stop Oil has been roundly condemned for costing taxpayers nearly £20million in just over a year to police as protesters repeatedly tried to bring London to a standstill.
Latest figures released by the Metropolitan Police show that the force spent more than £3.8million responding to the group’s disruptive protests over a five-week period in October and November.
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Police and Crime General
Shoplifting and other retail crime has not always been tackled effectively, police chiefs have admitted.
Thames Valley Police has launched a new Retail Crime Strategy, developed jointly with retailers and businesses.
Police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber said offences targeting shops were not "victimless crimes".
The Association of Convenience Stores welcomed efforts to target "prolific, repeat offenders who blight communities".
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Police and Crime General
A whistleblower who resigned from Greater Manchester Police has told Sky News the force's child protection investigation unit where she worked is "not fit for purpose" and that failures have left a paedophile ring at large for at least seven years.
In her resignation letter last year, she said: "I don't feel like we're making things better for these kids. In fact, I think we're making it worse."
She also said that her work with the victims only served to "re-traumatise them" and "leave them hanging".
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Sixty-four Northumbria Police officers were accused of sexual or domestic abuse over the last four years, it has been revealed.
The figures cover April 2019 to March 2023 and saw 54 officers investigated with 11 dismissed and three prosecuted.
The information was released following a request by councillors in North Tyneside.
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Police and Crime General
James Cleverly must not repeat the same “tropes and terminology” as Suella Braverman, the head of the police racism watchdog has said.
In an interview with the Mirror, Nick Glynn told the Home Secretary to recognise “his words have immense power and influence” as he warned that police officers are “not immune” to being influenced by harmful narratives. He gave the example of Ms Braverman describing illegal migration as an “invasion”, as well as her interference in pro-Palestine protests, which she described as “hate marches”.
“I know what it’s like as a Police Commander to keep the balance right and it’s hard. The Home Secretary’s job should not be making that more difficult for policing,” he said. “They should be being as supportive, or as quiet as appropriate, and to let them get on with treading that very difficult path and keeping that balance.”
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police has apologised to a man after homeless people's tents were destroyed in central London.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley admitted that officers acted unlawfully when issuing a dispersal order and some tents were thrown into bin lorries.
It happened on 10 November on Huntley Street, Camden.
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Justice
Tens of thousands of child sexual abuse victims face long waits for vital support, a major report has found.
It takes at least six months for many to get help including therapy, advice and counselling, but some wait over a year, the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) report says.
Coverage is patchy, with victims facing a "postcode lottery" in accessing support, according to researchers.
Service providers say they cannot keep up with rising demand.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Independent retailers have welcomed a “crucial” amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would make it an offence to assault a shop worker.
The amendment was tabled by Alex Norris, the Shadow Minister for Policing earlier this week.
Muntazir Dipoti, the national president of the Federation of Independent Retailers, said: “We have been lobbying the Government for years for better protection for those who work in shops, for any form of attacks on shop workers to be taken more seriously and for the penalties for those who commit such crimes to be more stringent.”
He added: “We campaigned successfully in Scotland for the establishment of a standalone offence for those who abuse or use violence against retail workers.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police has been carrying out undercover operations over the last two years to catch suspected robbers targeting people with luxury watches.
In four CCTV videos filmed on different days in London's Soho, criminals can be seen approaching people - who unbeknownst to them are undercover police officers - and then proceeding to try and take their watches.
A number of stings have taken place in London, after 300 watches were stolen between April and September 2022, totalling in a value of £4m.
Commander of Met Intelligence, Ben Russell, said that the stings "resulted in 31 robbers arrested in a 12-month period" and that "fourteen have already been sentenced".
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Police Finances
A police force is planning £5.2m in savings over the next four years.
Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore said the plans were a "worst-case scenario" and that, while it was too early to say where the axe may fall, he hoped to avoid job losses.
Mr Passmore, a Conservative, said cuts were necessary due to a "lousy" government funding settlement.
The Home Office said that in 2024/25 Suffolk Police would receive £10.8m more than during the current year.
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Police and Crime General
People in West Yorkshire must take "personal responsibility" to help tackle knife crime, police have said.
The comment by Ch Insp James Kitchen came after staff at a Leeds hospital shared their concerns about the number of injuries from machete-style weapons.
West Yorkshire Police said while knife crime had decreased, it was down to communities to keep reporting it.
Ch Insp Kitchen said: "We must all work together as one community."
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
An investigation into potential criminal offences linked to the Post Office/Horizon scandal will take at least until 2026, Britain’s most senior police officer has admitted.
Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that an exhaustive nationwide investigation will take place to determine whether crimes have been committed. The investigation will follow the public inquiry into the scandal, which is due to publish its findings late next year.
He said detectives will have to trawl through tens of millions of documents in order to establish whether crimes such as fraud or perverting the course of justice took place. Officers will have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was “deliberate malice” on the part of alleged suspects.
[ more...]
Police Demand
West Midlands Police says that it is now one of the best performing police forces in answering calls for help within just 10 seconds after spending the past 11 months transforming the way it answers 999 and 101 calls. Police officers are now arriving at the most serious incidents in an average of 12 minutes which is two minutes faster than in March 2023.
In December 2022, the force only answered 78 per cent of emergency calls and 40 per cent of non-emergency calls. It said that this was ‘simply was not good enough and not the service we wanted to provide to the communities of West Midlands Police.’
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Economy & Public Finance
The annual rate of inflation has surprisingly risen, official figures show.
The consumer price index (CPI) measure of inflation stood at 4% in the year to December, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). A fall, to 3.8%, had been expected by economists polled by Reuters.
But instead inflation rose from 3.9% in the 12 months to November.
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Police and Crime General
The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess is suing the police and the Home Office for failing to prevent his death.
Katie Amess has filed a court claim to get justice for her father, 69, who was stabbed to death while meeting constituents at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15 2021, according to The Mirror.
Ali Harbi Ali, 28, was found guilty of murdering the Conservative MP for Southend West at the Old Bailey in April 2022 and he was handed a whole-life prison term.
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Police and Crime General
A police force has referred itself to the police watchdog after a two-year-old boy starved to death next to his father’s body in what has been described as a “straightforward system failure” by the authorities.
Bronson Battersby was last seen alive on Boxing Day and was found 14 days later lying next to his father Kenneth Battersby, 60, who had died of a heart attack at their home in Skegness.
Social workers had visited the home on January 2 and again two days later, getting no answer. They contacted police on both occasions but the bodies were not found until January 9 when Battersby’s landlord provided a key to the property. She and a social worker opened the door to discover Battersby dead and his son “curled up” next to him.
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Police and Crime General
It has always been a big ask to convince enough fit, brave and smart individuals to sign up to be a Police Constable in the capital.
Sir Ernest Shackleton’s apocryphal advert seeking men for his Antarctic expedition who were willing to tolerate “low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness; safe return doubtful” often seems not far from appropriate.
The Metropolitan Police’s own data now shows that the numbers willing to sign up for a policing career have reached crisis levels. Three years ago a quarter to a third of Londoners were willing to consider a policing career – now the figure has cratered to around 10 per cent.
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Police Finances
Scotland Yard has warned ministers and City Hall that it risks being unable to police London effectively and overhaul its performance because of a £250 million funding shortfall as it seeks to win more money for the coming year.
The force says that rising demand and changing crime patterns, which are both affecting the capital disproportionately, are among the causes of the huge gap in its budget for the next financial year.
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Police Finances
The government has been told to stop “messing around” and bring forward a new fit for purpose police funding formula as a matter of urgency.
West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster, is doing all he can to fight for fair funding for West Midlands Police, but the government’s “time wasting” is leaving the force facing a £27m budget deficit in the next financial year.
He said the force was having to make tough decisions on cuts and highlighted that despite the so-called uplift, the force still had 800 fewer police officers and 500 fewer PCSOs than it did in 2010. In addition, the failure to implement the existing funding formula in full, costs West Midlands Police £40 million a year – the equivalent of 800 police officers.
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Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England may be forced to bring forward the date of its first interest rate cut after three leading forecasters issued a surprise update suggesting the inflation rate will halve to 2% by April.
The Oxford Economics consultancy and analysts at Investec and Deutsche Bank have reassessed their outlook for inflation in 2024 and concluded that the consumer prices index (CPI), which dropped to 3.9% in November last year, will fall below 2% within four months.
A slump in energy prices and the cost of oil on international wholesale markets will, they say, bring down inflation at a faster rate than the Bank of England expected when it reviewed price rises in November.
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Police and Crime General
Wiltshire Police has put an improvement plan and recruitment strategy in place for responding to 999 calls.
It comes after more than 20% of emergency calls to the force were not answered in under the target 10 seconds in November, according to Police.UK data.
It found that of 7,868 emergency calls, 77% met the target.
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Police Demand
The annual number of sexual offences recorded on the Tube have risen, British Transport Police (BTP) figures show.
There were 909 sexual offences, excluding rape, recorded between December 1, 2022 and November 30, 2023, compared to 866 in the previous 12 months.
The figures also show that violent crimes rose, with 3,542 incidents reported, up from 2,963 in the previous year.
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Police and Crime General
Devon and Cornwall Police is no longer under extra scrutiny over its handling of violent and sexual offenders in communities, it announced.
In October 2022, the force was moved into an enhanced level of monitoring by the police inspectorate.
The watchdog found three areas for improvement; emergency call response, recording of crime and management of registered sex and violent offenders. "Additional scrutiny" has been lifted for the third strand, the force said.
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Technology
Police chiefs in England and Wales are reducing their use of social media due to foreign automated bots that they fear could unduly influence the public’s view of the service, a watchdog has found.
There are also concerns over other social media users misusing official police communications to fit their own agenda, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) said.
Watchdog chief Andy Cooke wrote to the Home Secretary James Cleverly on Wednesday to give an update on a review of activism and impartiality in the police.
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Police Finances
Steve Hartshorn said the episode, Will My Crime Be Solved, which aired on Monday (January 8) highlighted a number of criminal cases in which the subsequent police investigation appeared inadequate and the victims of each felt let down by the police response.
“While the journalist was at lengths to highlight, rightly, the impact of these crimes on the victims, and appeared to shine a light on police response and investigation inadequacies, I feel that what was missing was an explicit expression of the root causes that have led to such failings,” said Mr Hartshorn.
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Police and Crime General
Police officers are confused about how to treat trans people and want better training to avoid misgendering them, a watchdog has found.
Forces said there needed to be greater clarity about how they applied the Equality Act particularly around complicated areas such as gender and sex.
In a letter to James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) warned that getting things wrong risked undermining public trust and confidence.
But there was also a warning that forces risked discriminating against certain people, such as the disabled, the elderly and those of particular faiths, because too much emphasis was placed on other protected groups.
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Police and Crime General
Ministers have told police chiefs to stop transgender officers conducting strip searches unless they have a gender recognition certificate.
Research from the Women’s Rights Network found that the majority of police forces allowed officers who self-identified as female to strip-search women.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, told parliament’s home affairs committee on Wednesday that codes of conduct which govern policing state that strip searches should be conducted only by someone of the same sex. He has asked the National Police Chiefs’ Council to review its guidance to ensure that transgender officers may search someone of their current sex only if they have a gender recognition certificate.
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Police Finances
Encouraging councils to use reserves as a one-off quick fix during the funding crisis is “misguided and unhelpful” and could put more authorities at risk of Section 114 notice, a finance director has said in response to a minister’s comments.
Local government minister Simon Hoare said “authorities can and indeed should” consider drawing on their reserves to meet any funding pressures because council cash balances have generally increased since the beginning of the pandemic.
However, Michael Hudson, executive director of finance and resources Cambridgeshire County Council, said Section 151 Officers allocate and use reserves with the full understanding and knowledge of their future financial risks.
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Police and Crime General
3D-printed guns have been recorded by Police Scotland for the first time, according to new figures.
Two incidents were logged last year, with the force working with key partners to prevent the risk posed by the manufacture, distribution and possession of the crafted firearms.
Figures obtained by justice and social affairs magazine 1919 revealed that an incident occurred in the Argyll and West Dunbartonshire division in April, followed by another in Tayside a month later.
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Justice
Hundreds of domestic abuse survivors will receive cash payments of £2,500 each to help them flee their tormentors, under a new initiative.
The £2m scheme, which launches this month, is described as a "lifeline" for women who can't flee - or are forced to return to - abusive relationships because they cannot afford essentials.
A successful pilot of the scheme last year, saw 600 victims given £250 or £500. A review found 80% of applicants used it to flee to a safe location, as well as buy food, clothing, nappies and security cameras.
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Police and Crime General
Simon Foster says if it is not withdrawn he will have no alternative but to seek a judicial review.
He disagrees with the Government’s plans to transfer the powers of the PCC to the mayor and has called on the Government to abandon its “hostile takeover plans”.
In his letter to the Home Secretary, Mr Foster highlights how a “surprise public consultation”, launched just before Christmas, does not adhere to the requirements for a lawful consultation.
He said: “I have repeatedly advised the Government and the mayor not to proceed with this cynical, divisive and undemocratic power grab, yet they have refused to listen.
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Recruitment and Retention
Police officers are more likely to quit their jobs now than ever before, an arresting survey reveals.
Too few officers, a blame culture, lack of support from bosses and stress are top reasons why cops leave.
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Police Demand
Police in England and Wales are leaving people at risk of domestic abuse by refusing to release information on suspected violent partners, the Observer can reveal, with one force declining 95% of requests for checks.
Under Clare’s law – named after Clare Wood, 36, who was murdered in 2009 by her ex-boyfriend George Appleton – people have a right to ask police whether a partner or ex-partner has a history of abusive behaviour.
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Police and Crime General
Actor Idris Elba has urged the government to immediately ban machetes and so-called zombie knives, saying it's "time to push the agenda as strongly as we can".
The Luther star has launched a campaign called Don't Stop Your Future, and told Sky News that "the nation wants to see that we do care about our youth".
"We're seeing a rise not a decline and that needs to change," Elba said.
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Police and Crime General
The government is "actively considering" using legislation to quash all the Horizon scandal convictions, according to the justice secretary.
Alex Chalk answered questions about the government's position in between meetings with senior judges to discuss ways to accelerate the appeals of those convicted in the Horizon scandal.
An announcement is expected this week - with Mr Chalk saying he expects to be able to make "further announcements shortly".
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Police and Crime General
The Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences committed during the Horizon IT scandal.
Over a 15-year period, more than 700 branch managers were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud, based on faulty software information.
It has been called the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.
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Police Finances
The Stop the War Coalition has defended its pro-Palestinian protests as “overwhelmingly peaceful” after a government adviser suggested that activists should pay for the policing of their marches.
Lord Walney, the Home Office’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, is urging ministers to consider charging organisers for the costs of policing demonstrations.
His call came as hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters staged a sit-in at Westminster Bridge at the weekend, requiring a heavy police presence.
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Police and Crime General
A black youth worker who was standing with his arms folded when he was shot with a stun gun by officers during a traffic stop has been given permission to appeal over a lost claim for damages against City of London police.
Officers claimed in statements that Edwin Afriyie had adopted a “fighting stance” before he was hit by the Taser electrical weapon but police body-worn camera footage showed his arms were folded and he was standing at a distance from them.
Afriyie, 37, hit his head on a stone ledge and sustained a minor injury after the shot knocked him backwards.
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Police and Crime General
The police are investigating an alleged rape in the metaverse for the first time after a child was “attacked” while playing a virtual reality video game, it emerged last night.
The girl, who is under the age of 16, was not injured as there was no physical assault but is said to have suffered significant psychological and emotional trauma. She had been wearing an immersive headset while in a virtual “room” when she was attacked by several adult men, according to the Daily Mail.
Police leaders are concerned that sexual offending is rife in online worlds, and Ian Critchley, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for child protection and abuse investigation, said: “The metaverse creates a gateway for predators to commit horrific crimes against children.”
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Police Finances
Mr Lloyd is one of the longest-serving PCCs in the country having being elected to the post when it was created in 2012. He was re-elected in 2016 and again 2021.
He was previously chair of the Hertfordshire Police Authority and deputy leader of Hertfordshire County Council and has been continuously involved in police governance since 2005 – the longest in the country.
The new PCC will be elected in May 2024 when elections will be held across England and Wales.
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Police and Crime General
More teenage homicides were recorded in London last year than in 2022 after 21 teenagers were killed.
Of those who died, 18 teenagers were stabbed, two were shot and one was killed after his moped was hit by a car.
The number is up on 2022, when 14 teenage homicides were recorded, but lower than the peak of 30 in 2021.
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Police and Crime General
A prolific shoplifting couple with more than 60 convictions for theft have been jailed after terrorising a market town.
Scott McSpadden and Tanya Momot, who are already banned from entering shops together, stole hundreds of pounds worth of alcohol and hair straighteners from two major stores.
The couple have a combined total of 120 criminal offences against their names, including 60 thefts, and were already subject to Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs), but they had, until now, escaped jail.
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Police Demand
Bike thefts have been effectively “decriminalised”, with nine out of 10 cases remaining unsolved, analysis of Home Office data shows.
More than 365,000 bike thefts reported to police have gone unsolved since 2019, accounting for 89 per cent of all cases, analysis of Home Office data shows.
This adds up to 200 bike thefts a day – more than eight an hour – going unsolved in England and Wales over the past four years.
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Police and Crime General
Thousands of vulnerable women are being left at serious risk of harm because police forces are failing to hand over potentially lifesaving information on violent criminals, The Independent can reveal.
In the latest shameful example of England’s police forces failing to protect women, official data shows that more than half of 20,226 requests for background checks on potential domestic abusers were rejected during a six-month period.
Campaigners say that victims face a “postcode lottery” in their search for answers, with one expert warning that the sheer scale of rejections is putting women’s lives at risk.
Senior Tory MP Robert Buckland has called for an urgent independent review of the disclosure scheme, known as Clare’s Law. It is named after 36-year-old Clare Wood, who was murdered in 2009 by her ex-boyfriend George Appleton. Appleton had a history of violence that Wood was unaware of.
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Police and Crime General
I knew I was cutting it fine – trying to squeeze in a last afternoon with old friends ahead of a final night with my family, before leaving for home. “A couple of hours,” I said to my parents, who were planning a takeaway pizza send-off for me.
The crowd at the pub was much larger than I’d anticipated (“you’re hardly ever here! Why wouldn’t everyone come?” my best friend said, delightedly) and it was hard to make my way around everybody. I became anxious, knowing that my family was expecting me home; more so when I saw how low my phone battery was. Not wanting to rely on its dwindling strength to get an Uber, I said goodbye to everyone and told them I was going to head out onto the street and hail a taxi.
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Police and Crime General
Policing Insight have published the recipients of the policing and public safety new years honours.
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Police and Crime General
Police officers, staff and volunteers from forces across the country have been recognised in His Majesty The King's New Year Honours List.
People of all ranks and several roles have been awarded honours.
The 2024 list includes a total of 36 police and law enforcement personnel honoured for their extraordinary contributions to policing.
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Recruitment and Retention
More than 1,100 police officers across England and Wales are under investigation for sexual or domestic abuse, prompting fresh calls for vetting and misconduct procedures to be radically overhauled.
Of these, 180 – almost one in seven – have been allowed to carry on working as normal despite the severity of the offences. Of the 1,151 officers under investigation, 428 have been placed on restricted duties, with another 378 suspended.
The highest number of officers under investigation is from the largest force, the Metropolitan police, with 657 individuals accused of sexual or domestic abuse, or both.
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Police Demand
More than 200,000 shoplifting cases went unsolved over the space of 12 months, the Liberal Democrats have concluded from analysis of official figures.
The party, which studied statistics for England and Wales, says the government is "totally falling" to tackle a "growing crime epidemic".
A Home Office spokeswoman said charging rates for shoplifting are up by "almost a third" in the past year.
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Justice
Shoplifters will benefit most from the government’s plans to impose a moratorium on jail sentences of less than 12 months in England and Wales, figures show.
Despite Rishi Sunak’s attempt to introduce tough sentences for criminals in the run-up to the general election, shoplifters, offenders convicted of battery, and those who have assaulted emergency workers, are the top three groups who will avoid prison under the government’s new measure.
Shoplifters account for more than one in eight offenders who will not face jail and who will instead receive a suspended sentence, the data shows.
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Police Demand
After a burglar stole thousands of pounds' worth of power tools from her home, in St Albans, in October, Sharon Allen turned amateur detective.
She began going house to house, making her own inquiries, and handed CCTV footage from her neighbours to police.
"He's got a distinctive nose," Ms Allen tells BBC News, as she examines her own black-and-white security-camera footage.
"I've given them the information and I'm hoping they've looked at the CCTV."
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Police Demand
After a burglar stole thousands of pounds' worth of power tools from her home, in St Albans, in October, Sharon Allen turned amateur detective.
She began going house to house, making her own inquiries, and handed CCTV footage from her neighbours to police.
"He's got a distinctive nose," Ms Allen tells BBC News, as she examines her own black-and-white security-camera footage.
"I've given them the information and I'm hoping they've looked at the CCTV."
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Justice
Education, training and rehabilitation needs to become the primary focus of jails, the chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales has said. He said that a "fundamental reorientation" of the prison system was the only way to reduce reoffending.
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Police and Crime General
Letters of thanks from Home Secretary James Cleverly to all police, fire and rescue service workers.
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Justice
Analysis of 116 studies found that imprisonment resulted in ‘increased reoffending’ compared with punishments in the community
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Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation has fallen to its lowest level for more than two years, driven largely by a drop in fuel prices.
Prices rose by 3.9% in the year to November, down from 4.6% in October.
Slowing price rises for food, including staples such as pasta, milk and butter, as well as for household goods were also behind the fall.
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Police and Crime General
The Government are consulting on the transfer of police and crime commissioner functions to the Mayor of South Yorkshire at the May 2024 elections.
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Police and Crime General
The Government is consulting on the transfer of police and crime commissioner functions to the Mayor of the West Midlands at the May 2024 elections.
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Police Demand
The number of 999 calls received by a police force has increased, while the proportion of those answered within the national 10-second target has dropped.
Cleveland Police took nearly 122,000 emergency calls in the year to September, a rise of more than 8,500 on the previous 12 months.
The average waiting time was less but the percentage of calls answered within 10 seconds decreased to 84.3% from 88.2%.
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Police Demand
Reporting to the Met Police Board earlier this month, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley confirmed that his officers attended 6,000 less deployments to mental health calls, almost half compared with the same period last year. This comes after the Met introduced a new approach called Right Care, Right Person for those in a mental health crisis.
He said that this equated to 34,000 hours of police officer time saved, as under this approach they will not attend medical calls where a healthcare professional is more appropriate.
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Prisons
Suella Braverman opposed sentencing plans when she was home secretary that would see up to 6,800 criminals spared jail at any one time, it emerged on Sunday.
Mrs Braverman sought to block Ministry of Justice (MoJ) plans to let offenders facing jail terms of less than 12 months serve their punishment in the community on suspended sentences rather than in prison but was overruled by Rishi Sunak, sources say.
A newly-released impact assessment from the MoJ has now revealed that the policy will mean between 1,700 and 6,800 offenders including thieves, shoplifters and drink drivers will be under the supervision of probation officers at any given time after being spared jail. The mid-range estimate is 3,700.
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Police Demand
Less than half of shoplifting reports in London are being attended by the police, new data has shown.
Met Police statistics show that between April 2022 and April 2023 38% of shoplifting-related calls were attended by officers.
Caroline Pidgeon, a Liberal Democrat assembly member, called on the government to tackle the gangs behind "shoplifting rings".
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Police and Crime General
More training for door staff and funding for testing kits are among a package of measures announced to crack down on spiking.
The Home Office has said the law will also be "modernised" to make it clear spiking - putting alcohol or drugs into another person's drink or body without their consent - is a crime.
The plans have broadly been welcomed by campaigners.
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Police Finances
Police leaders have warned that shortfalls in Government funding will leave forces in England and Wales facing “difficult financial decisions” next year.
A 6% increase in cash terms falls short of what is needed to “progress and improve”, chief constables said, while the staff association for more than 145,000 rank-and-file officers branded the package the “worst financial support forces have received in recent years”.
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Police Finances
A £40m cash boost for West Yorkshire Police will do "nothing" to close its funding gap, the politician in charge of the county's policing has said.
Funding for the West Yorkshire force would rise from £574.8m in 2023-24 to £615.5m in 2024-25, Policing Minister Chris Philp confirmed on Thursday.
But Alison Lowe, the county's deputy mayor, said it had lost £140m since 2010 and faced an £11m deficit in 2024.
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Police Finances
A £40m cash boost for West Yorkshire Police will do "nothing" to close its funding gap, the politician in charge of the county's policing has said.
Funding for the West Yorkshire force would rise from £574.8m in 2023-24 to £615.5m in 2024-25, Policing Minister Chris Philp confirmed on Thursday.
But Alison Lowe, the county's deputy mayor, said it had lost £140m since 2010 and faced an £11m deficit in 2024.
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Police Finances
Responding to today’s police funding settlement APCC Lead on Funding Formula, CSR and Grants, Roger Hirst, Essex Police Fire and Crime Commissioner, said:
“Today’s announcement is good news for policing and gives Police and Crime Commissioners greater flexibility in locally raised funding. The police service must adapt to meet evolving threats and challenges, and this can only happen with sound investment to support growth. We welcome the flexibility in precept cap, which in part recognises the inflationary pressures currently impacting forces and the need for additional funding if we are to maintain the frontline resources necessary to get crime down."
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Economy & Public Finance
The UK economy shrank by more than expected in October, as higher interest rates squeezed consumers and bad weather swept the country.
The economy fell 0.3% during the month, after growth of 0.2% in September.
Household spending has been dented by rate rises as the Bank of England tries to tackle inflation. It is due to make its next rate decision on Thursday.
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Prisons
Eight out of 10 people in the UK caught with images of children being sexually abused avoid going to jail, the head of the National Crime Agency has revealed.
Graeme Biggar, the director general of the NCA, said some had been caught with thousands of images but avoided imprisonment, and others had been given rehabilitation orders and suspended sentences and then reoffended.
In a media briefing, the NCA called for tougher sentences of imprisonment.
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Police Demand
Campaigners have written to the chief constables of Norfolk and Suffolk to request an investigation into thousands of mental health deaths in those areas.
They say coroners are raising safety issues but no improvements are being made.
A report by independent auditors found as many as 8,440 patients had died unexpectedly over three years.
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Police Demand
With a population of around 3,000, Fordham, Cambridgeshire, is not known to be a hotbed of organised crime.
But for Jonathan James, who opened a new Fresh & Proper shop in the village with his son Joshua in June, it has become the site of an ongoing battle with shoplifting gangs.
“It’s utterly soul destroying just how brazen they are,” says James, who runs 45 stores across the country. “I’ve got a video of six people coming in – three ladies and three gentlemen – and they are just loading stuff into the females’ skirts.”
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Police Demand
With a population of around 3,000, Fordham, Cambridgeshire, is not known to be a hotbed of organised crime.
But for Jonathan James, who opened a new Fresh & Proper shop in the village with his son Joshua in June, it has become the site of an ongoing battle with shoplifting gangs.
“It’s utterly soul destroying just how brazen they are,” says James, who runs 45 stores across the country. “I’ve got a video of six people coming in – three ladies and three gentlemen – and they are just loading stuff into the females’ skirts.”
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Police Finances
The Metropolitan Police lacks the funding it needs to meet London's “unique demands”, Sadiq Khan has said.
The mayor has written to Home Secretary James Cleverley to call for an increase in the National and International Capital City (NICC) grant.
NICC is a mechanism provided to the Met to support the additional costs of policing a capital city – including protests, sporting events and diplomatic protection.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Pro-Palestine protests have cost police as much as £20 million and have put a strain on other frontline duties as thousands of officers have had to be redeployed every week since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Metropolitan Police lacks the funding it needs to meet London's “unique demands”, Sadiq Khan has said.
The mayor has written to Home Secretary James Cleverley to call for an increase in the National and International Capital City (NICC) grant.
NICC is a mechanism provided to the Met to support the additional costs of policing a capital city – including protests, sporting events and diplomatic protection.
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Technology
The biggest data breach in the history of UK policing, which saw the personal details of almost 10,000 Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers published online, was missed by six officials, a report has found.
The surnames, initials, ranks and units where the officers and staff worked ended up in the hands of dissident republicans after being mistakenly published online following a Freedom of Information request in August.
It was initially thought the blunder was the result of “simple human error”, but an independent review into the data breach found that six people missed the mistake before the data was eventually published.
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Police Demand
The Met Police has asked Just Stop Oil (JSO) to "reach out and speak to us" after revealing policing the campaign group's protests has cost almost £20m.
The force said the time it had spent on the group equated to roughly 300 officers being taken off frontline policing each day.
It added JSO had "refused to engage" with police when planning protests.
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Police and Crime General
Police still do not have an accurate understanding of "grooming gangs", despite years of concerns about the problem, the police watchdog has said.
His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) reviewed 27 cases.
Data collection was "unreliable", it said, and intelligence gathering "wasn't prioritised".
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
HMICFRS has identified a number of areas of positive practice within Surrey Police’s understanding and use of police powers.
The force has been graded as “adequate” in this category by the Inspectorate this morning, with further work required on informing the public on how analysis and monitoring inform the use force and stop and search, as well as ongoing work on addressing disproportionality.
Surrey holds quarterly meetings discussing both these powers, however HMICFRS has today said that the minutes from these should be published and enable the public to both follow discussions and subsequent decisions.
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Police Demand
The number of child cruelty and neglect cases has more than doubled in the past five years, police data collected by the NSPCC shows.
The data from police forces in England shows there were 29,405 offences between April 2022 and March 2023 compared to 14,263 offences between April 2017 and March 2018.
The figures, obtained by the NSPCC children's charity by using the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the number of cases increased steadily year on year during that period.
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Police and Crime General
Drug-drivers convicted in the South Tees area (policed by officers in Cleveland) will become the first in the UK to be offered an educational course to reduce reoffending – similar to the drink-drive rehabilitation scheme – under a pilot programme which, if successful, could be rolled out nationwide.
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Police and Crime General
The West Midlands Mayor has said his request to take on the powers of the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) have been approved by the Home Secretary.
Andy Street has argued it is necessary because the West Midlands force is currently in special measures and has seen crime rise.
He said it would not happen until after the next mayoral elections in May.
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Prisons
Prisons are being allowed to release domestic abusers early to deal with chronic overcrowding, leaked government guidance has revealed.
The document was sent to 21 prisons across England and Wales as part of an early release scheme launched last month by the justice secretary, Alex Chalk.
It confirms that convicts guilty of a range of domestic abuse offences, as well violent offenders sentenced to less than four years, can be freed early. The government has made tackling domestic abuse and violence against women a pillar of its criminal justice reforms.
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Police and Crime General
A police force which was put into special measures for failing to record up to 80,000 crimes has "significantly improved" its performance, the police inspectorate has said.
A report by the watchdog said no areas of policing by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) were currently inadequate.
Outcomes for victims of crime had been improved, it added.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Sadiq Khan has been criticised for failing to keep Londoners safe after crime on the capital’s transport network increased by a third.
Figures show a 30 per cent rise in the number of crimes reported on public transport in London in the six months up to September. The total of 22,290 crimes reported was up from the 17,160 recorded in the same period last year.
The sharp rise came despite public transport use increasing by only 13 per cent between the two periods.
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Justice
Courts could soon be handing out more rehabilitative community sentences, rather than sending people to jail for short terms, under radical new plans.
The Sentencing Council for England and Wales says judges and magistrates should think more about sentences that are proven to reform offenders.
The plans tell courts to think twice about jailing women because of the impact on children.
The plans, years in development, come amid a prison overcrowding crisis.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The number of temporary gun licences issued by Devon and Cornwall Police has "drastically reduced," according to the force's police and crime commissioner (PCC).
PCC Alison Hernandez told Devon and Cornwall's police and crime panel on average only four temporary gun licences are now issued each month.
The 50-year licensing system is being reformed after an inquest found "catastrophic" failings in the force's firearms licensing unit allowed a lone gunman to kill five people in Plymouth.
[ more...]
Police Finances
It might have been better to “wait a bit” before launching into the programme to replace the Airwave system, the Home Office Permanent Secretary has said.
With the programme further delayed while Motorola appeal the decision by the Competition Markets Authority to cap the amount it can charge forces for the current system, Sir Matthew Rycroft has said that as a government “it is not always the best place to be, to be at the cutting edge of technology”.
The programme now has a baseline cost of £11.3bn where the cost in the business case, signed off in 2015, stood at £5.2bn.
[ more...]
Prisons
Menopausal female offenders could be spared jail under new sentencing guidelines for judges and magistrates.
The Sentencing Council, which advises the Government and courts, has set out new guidelines encouraging courts to consider more rehabilitative community sentences rather than sending people to jail for short terms.
The council said judges and magistrates should think more about sentences that are proven to reform offenders and think twice about jailing younger women because of the impact on children and older women because of the menopause.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A police force which made improvements to be pulled out of special measures is struggling with a "really inexperienced" workforce, bosses said.
Gloucestershire Constabulary was discussing barriers to its recovery at a Police and Crime Panel on Friday.
Assistant Chief Constable Richard Ocone raised concerns that increasingly high workloads were placed on young officers who are also required to do a degree.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
A police force which made improvements to be pulled out of special measures is struggling with a "really inexperienced" workforce, bosses said.
Gloucestershire Constabulary was discussing barriers to its recovery at a Police and Crime Panel on Friday.
Assistant Chief Constable Richard Ocone raised concerns that increasingly high workloads were placed on young officers who are also required to do a degree.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
One of England's biggest police forces remains "institutionally racist" and must do more to tackle the problem, a leading equality advisor has said.
A 2021 report found black people were more likely to be arrested, Tasered and searched by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) than white people.
Elizabeth Cameron, who worked with GMP on the report, said its systems were "perpetuating racial discrimination".
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The government has only met its target to show debt will fall by “pretending” certain measures, including the fuel duty freeze, will end this year, economists at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Jeremy Hunt has pledged up to £7m over the next three years to charities tackling antisemitism in the UK.
The chancellor unveiled the measure while delivering the government's Autumn Statement on Wednesday.
Mr Hunt expressed his "horror" at the Hamas attack on Israel last month, and said he was "deeply concerned about the rise of antisemitism" in the UK.
Police have recorded a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents since the conflict broke out on 7 October.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
It is the first time the national lead force for the three threat areas has produced a five-year plan, which builds on fraud and cybercrime being included in the strategic policing requirement earlier this year.
The new strategy has been developed to guide and support local, regional and national policing to deliver a better service for victims and sets out the actions under three objectives to improve outcomes for victims, proactively pursue offenders and protect people and businesses from threat.
T/Assistant Commissioner Nik Adams who is responsible for the national coordination of economic and cybercrime, welcomed more than 400 operational law enforcement professionals and industry representatives at this week’s Serious and Organised Crime Exchange (SOCEX) conference to share the plan and discuss how the UK tackles fraud and cybercrime.
[ more...]
Prisons
Scarlett Roberts' diary of her four months inside a women's jail last year is a rare and shocking account of mostly male prison officers allegedly abusing their power over women.
One extract reads: "14th of May, cell 19 after lunch at 12:30. Two officers were arguing with her. She was not violent... There were seven officers in the end, all restraining her in her cell. No officers put bodycams on. One officer kicked her in the chest."
Her account details the alleged treatment of a youth offender in a cell next door.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Thames Valley Police responded to more than half a million contacts from the public in the six months from April to September, new figures have shown.
The force said it made 16,239 arrests during the period, 28% of which were related to domestic violence.
The figures also showed a 22% rise in the number of charges for rape and an 11% increase for other sexual offences, compared with the same period in 2022.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Thieves, drug dealers and shoplifters could be charged within hours under new police powers to speed up justice.
Police will be able to charge offenders for crimes that merit jail sentences of up to six months without having to go through independent crown prosecutors.
The move – a significant increase in the powers of the police – will be piloted by “high performing” forces before any expansion to all 43 constabularies in England and Wales.
The change has been recommended by a government-commissioned review that found officers spent 540,000 hours a year filling in 17-page forms for nearly every case sent to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) before it decided on whether to charge.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
APCC Chair, Donna Jones said:
“It was great to welcome the new Home Secretary to the APCC/NPCC Partnership Summit, in collaboration with the College of Policing. We're grateful for him attending after just four days in post. His words on working together and our combined duty to the public are important and welcome.
“Police and Crime Commissioners look forward to working closely with him and police colleagues to meet the public's expectations on combatting and reducing crime.
“I've known James Cleverly for years and I'm looking forward to working with him to continue to achieve, not only improvements in the policing and criminal justice system, but to ensure policing is match fit for whatever the future holds. This morning I have spoken to him about our first sit down meeting and about the part that PCCs are committed to doing to support him in making communities safer with a first-class police service across the UK."
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police officers have seen a dramatic increase in the number of criminals using imitation firearms, official figures show.
Offences involving imitation weapons jumped by 13 per cent to 2,130 in the 12 months to March, up from 1,889 in the previous year. This means the use of such firearms has risen to its highest level since 2008, when 2,561 were used in offences, according to the police data.
Police chiefs believe the success in closing down other markets for weapons such as conventional and converted guns has fuelled demand for alternative sources, including 3D-printed firearms.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The actions of pro-Palestinian protesters who climbed on to a war memorial were “inflammatory” but not illegal, the Metropolitan police commissioner said on Thursday, as the government said it would consider giving police new powers to prevent “offensive” demonstrations.
Video footage appears to show at least two pro-Palestinian protesters clambering on the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, central London, on Wednesday evening, timed to coincide with a vote on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza in the Commons.
The video shows the protesters being spoken to by a police officer, and agreeing to come down.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Shoplifting is “creeping in” among the middle classes because of faulty self-checkouts, the chairman of Marks & Spencer has said.
Archie Norman said well-off shoppers were being tempted to walk out without paying for items when self-checkout scanners failed to properly register all their items.
Mr Norman said: “Nobody quite understands why this has happened, but shoplifting has become a global problem. We’re seeing this rise.
“It’s too easy to say it’s a cost of living problem. Some of this shoplifting is gangs. Then you get the middle class.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are weighing up last-minute cuts to income tax or national insurance to boost economic growth and the Conservative Party’s electoral fortunes.
The prime minister and chancellor have taken the surprise decision to consider tax cuts for low and middle earners before the autumn statement on Wednesday, having been handed billions of pounds of additional spending power.
[ more...]
Technology
Plans to use drones as first responders to emergencies will be trialled by a police force next year.
Dubbed Project Eagle X, initial trials will take place in Norfolk because of limited access to the helicopters flown by the National Police Air Service.
If successful, drones would be stationed on buildings and operated remotely to scenes to give the police early information.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
Almost 4,500 officers have left policing during their probation period since 2019, with ‘nonsensical’ policing degrees being singled out as a reason why new recruits are leaving in their droves.
Figures provided to LBC by over thirty police forces across England and Wales detail the number of people to depart within the first two years of their employment during the Uplift Programme, a scheme launched by the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson four years ago to add 20,000 police officers to Britain’s streets.
The findings illustrate a concerning picture about police retention across the country, with the failure to keep hold of new recruits exacerbating the staffing shortfalls highlighted by many chief constables.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
James Cleverly has promised police chiefs that he will “praise in public” and “criticise in private”.
In a thinly veiled swipe at Suella Braverman, his predecessor, the new Home Secretary told delegates at a policing summit that he did not want a “relationship of conflict”.
Mrs Braverman was sacked on Monday, just days after publishing a newspaper column in which she accused the police of bias in the way they handled protests. Her comments were criticised as an attack on the operational independence of policing.
[ more...]
Police Finances
West Sussex-based Jayesh Patel was at his wits’ end back in 2020 when - on top of the stress and supply issues caused by the pandemic - his store became a repeat target of known shop offenders.
Having previously been supportive, Jayesh found that as the problem escalated, the police became more distant - failing to attend the site or take a statement personally. “In the past five years before then, if I was experiencing shoplifting, they would come within that day or the next day and sit down with me and take the statement,” he says.
[ more...]
Police Finances
New data shows a sharp fall in UK inflation in the year to October, down to 4.6% It's the lowest rate since November 2021 - the fall is mainly down to lower energy prices.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
UK inflation fell sharply in October to its lowest rate in two years, largely due to lower energy prices.
Inflation, which measures the rate at which consumer prices rise, dropped to 4.6% in the year to October, down from 6.7% the month before.
The government says its pledge to halve inflation by end of the year has been met early.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Met Police Federation chairman says combined impact of demonstrators and Just Stop Oil protests would strain force’s day-to-day resources.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
David Cameron has returned to the cabinet table for the first time in more than seven years on Tuesday after his recall to government.
Rishi Sunak met his new cabinet after a dramatic overhaul on Monday saw the former prime minister return to frontline politics.
He replaces James Cleverly, who was moved to be home secretary to take over from Suella Braverman.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The UK Government’s efforts to influence policing’s operational response to protests have reached new levels in recent months, and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s comments on the issue would appear to have prompted her sacking; but Wrexham University’s Professor Peter Joyce and Dr Wendy Laverick of Hull University argue that policing independence in relation to protests has been threatened by Conservative governments for some time, and that a fundamental rethink of governance arrangements may be the only long-term answer.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), Tim Passmore, recently talked to PolicingTV about how he and Suffolk Constabulary have used the additional “Safer Streets” funding that he and his team obtained from the Home Office.
“We’ve got around £800,000, and it really has made a difference to defined areas within Ipswich.”
“It has helped improve security, public trust and confidence.”
[ more...]
Police Demand
Policing mass pro-Palestinian protests every weekend until Christmas is unsustainable and drags officers away from neighbourhood duties, the Metropolitan Police Federation has warned.
The federation, which represents rank and file police, said there was “no magic box of public order officers” the force could roll out to police the protests.
Last Saturday, Armistice Day, upwards of 300,000 demonstrators took to the streets of London to protest against the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is reshuffling his cabinet, with Suella Braverman sacked as home secretary, James Cleverly replacing her and former prime minister David Cameron going into the Foreign Office in an unexpected return to government.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Homeless people's tents in central London have been destroyed during a Met Police operation.
Refuse workers threw the tents into the back of their lorry on Huntley Street, Camden, at about 15:00 GMT on Friday.
Elodie Berland, who volunteers with outreach organisation Streets Kitchen, recorded the scene after being called there by some of the homeless men.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police are failing to show up in three out of four cases where shop workers have detained criminals who were looting from stores.
New figures from Co-op reveal that retail crime is worsening ahead of the crucial festive season, amid growing concern over police inaction.
The supermarket said it has experienced almost 300,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour this year across its 2,400 stores – up 43pc year-on-year.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police are failing to show up in three out of four cases where shop workers have detained criminals who were looting from stores.
New figures from Co-op reveal that retail crime is worsening ahead of the crucial festive season, amid growing concern over police inaction.
The supermarket said it has experienced almost 300,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour this year across its 2,400 stores – up 43pc year-on-year.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
James Cleverly arrived at the Home Office pledging to run the department in his own style.
The role of home secretary is one of the biggest jobs in government, with responsibility for the police, immigration, and national security.
Asked if he wanted to distance himself from the rhetoric of his predecessor, Suella Braverman, he said: "I intend to do this job in the way that I feel best protects the British people and our interests."
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Inflation is poised for a “seismic drop” to its lowest level in two years, figures are expected to show next week, which will result in Rishi Sunak hitting his target to halve the rate by the end of the year. The rate of price growth in the UK is expected to have fallen to 4.8 per cent in the year to October from 6.7 per cent in September, which would be the largest decline since 1992.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Half of all teenagers witnessed or were victims of violence in England and Wales last year, according to a landmark report by government advisers into what drives knife crime, bullying and gang rivalries.
The largest-ever survey in the UK of youngsters about the problem found “shocking and unacceptable” levels of youth violence, with 358,000 teenagers physically injured during the last 12 months.
The scale of the problem was also found to be undermining children’s education, with one in five teenagers admitting they had skipped school during the last 12 months because they felt unsafe, according to the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF).
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The UK's economy failed to grow between July to September compared to the previous three months, official figures show. Many economists had expected the UK to shrink over the period by around 0.1 per cent, but a stronger September meant the economy showed zero growth, according to the Office for National Statistics.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Police chiefs must be able to operate without political interference, one of the UK's most senior officers has said.
Gavin Stephens, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) chair, suggested policing could be undermined if "public debate" influences decision making.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has accused the police of bias in their handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
The move left her facing calls from some within her own party to be sacked by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
One of the UK’s most senior police officers has spoken out to defend force chiefs’ rights to make independent operational decisions amid intense political pressure linked to Armistice weekend protests.
Gavin Stephens, who is chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said that political views could not be allowed to influence decision making.
His comments came after the head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, refused to ban a pro-Palestine protest in central London on Saturday, despite pointed public comments by the prime minister and home secretary.
[ more...]
Technology
Facial recognition was used on crowds attending a Beyoncé concert in Cardiff to scan for paedophiles and terrorists.
South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Alun Michael said searching for potential terrorists at such events had become normal since the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
He said paedophiles were also targeted as "there would be very large numbers of young girls attending that concert".
Mr Michael described using such cameras as "entirely sensible".
[ more...]
Justice
Victims’ Commissioner Baroness Newlove said the statistics should serve as a “wake-up call” for all those involved in the justice system.
The findings were released ahead of her first speech in the House of Lords on Wednesday (November 8) in response to the King’s Speech.
They come as the landmark Victims and Prisoners Bill is set to return to Parliament.
Baroness Newlove used her speech to call for the Bill to be the “catalyst”, “to end the culture whereby victims’ entitlements are regarded as ‘optional’ extras or ‘nice to haves’, instead of a being a core part of delivering justice”.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
As a Service, we once again find ourselves facing a very difficult period and dealing with exceptional circumstances and tensions within our communities. There is a very real and tragic humanitarian crisis currently taking place overseas.
We join others across the world in condemning the terrorist attacks of Hamas and our thoughts remain with all involved.
A national policing response to the current conflict was quickly established by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), with support from the National Police Coordination Centre (NPoCC), even before the horrific severity of the initial attacks by Hamas became clear. This work links with, and functions alongside, established Counter Terrorism Policing structures, which continue to lead on protective security.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A permanent youth worker will be based at a county's missing persons unit following a pilot scheme.
Specialist youth workers carried out follow-up visits for every young person who had gone missing during a three-month period in Northamptonshire.
The county's police, fire and crime commissioner's office (OPFCC) said none of the 52 people who were visited went missing again.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The King’s Speech will keep violent criminals locked up for longer and put victims front and centre of the criminal justice system.
Under the new package of legislation, which is at the heart of the government’s legislative programme for the year ahead, the worst offenders will not only be kept behind bars for longer, but also forced to face their victims in court and hear first-hand how their crimes have devastated lives.
Through the new laws, due to be set out later today, the government will build on the progress it has already made to keep our streets safer. Since 2010, in England and Wales, violent crime is down 52% and domestic burglary by 57%.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
A pro-Palestinian protest on Armistice Day will go ahead, the head of the Metropolitan Police has said.
Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said "people should be very reassured that we're going to keep this away from the remembrance and armistice events".
[ more...]
Justice
Returning Victims’ Commissioner says blueprint for reform she left behind five years ago has largely been ignored.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Chancellor is facing renewed calls from Conservative colleagues to cut taxes after figures showed a multi-billion-pound improvement in the public finances since March’s budget.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The early warning system designed to identify English councils in serious financial difficulty is in crisis, with hundreds of local authorities failing to meet the legal deadline to publish audited accounts covering £100bn of public spending.
The vast majority – 99% – of English councils did not have their 2022-23 financial accounts signed off by the deadline this year, which experts say is increasing the risk of financial irregularities and risky behaviours going undetected..
More than 900 sets of accounts for councils and other public bodies going back to 2017 remain unaudited. Ministers are considering an amnesty whereby incomplete past audits would be cancelled to clear the backlog.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The recently-passed Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill has created an avenue whereby Mayor Andy Street can ask to bring this area into his remit.
The Mayor for the West Midlands has formally requested to take over responsibility for policing in the area, in a move previously branded a "hostile takeover" by PCC Simon Foster.
Conservative Mayor Andy Street has written to the Home Secretary requesting a transfer of these powers, an option that became available after the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was given royal assent on October 26.
[ more...]
Prisons
When Mancunian Helen Newlove first set foot into the House of Lords as a newly-enobled baroness, she admits she felt as out of place as Coronation Street’s Hilda Ogden might have done.
“It was a proud moment, but nerve wracking. I was surrounded by all these very clever people, intellectuals, academics who speak in a certain way. I thought how am I going to fit in? I’m Helen from the north and I live in a council house,” she says.
When asked her background, she would reply that she was the widow of Garry Newlove, who was murdered by being punched and kicked to death after confronting a gang of drunken youths vandalising her car. “It would stop the conversation,” she recalls.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to use the Autumn Statement to announce that public spending will not increase by more than 1 per cent a year for much of the next decade. It means that unprotected departments face real terms spending cuts in the coming years.
[ more...]
Recruitment and Retention
The Metropolitan Police had to return £60m funding to Government after the force failed to meet its uplift target. The Met was the only force not to meet its target by the deadline of March this year.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
The West Midlands mayor should be handed powers of the Police and Crime Commissioner after the next mayoral election, the current mayor says.
Conservative Andy Street has acted because "crime in this region has more than doubled... and I simply cannot allow it to go on any longer".
Mr Street, who has written to the home secretary, said currently police were not being properly held to account.
[ more...]
Police Demand
The Metropolitan police may have to seek support from other forces because of the pressure that managing protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict has had on the capital’s limited number of officers, the UK’s most senior officer said on Thursday.
Sir Mark Rowley told a meeting that since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 October, successive weekend protests in central London had been policed by 1,000 officers, then 1,500 and then 2,000.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
The Bank of England have frozen interest rates at 5.25 per cent for the second time in a row. The Bank of England warned that interest rates would have to remain high for “some time” to bring down inflation with a risk of the UK entering a recession.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Channel 4 reveals that hundreds of police officers have been suspended by UK police forces because of allegations of sexual offences.
The figures – released in response to freedom of information requests by Channel 4 News, come as police leaders say trust is being re-built and that alleged crimes by police – against women – are taken seriously.
But some women who’ve reported serving officers have told this programme that too often police perpetrators are getting away with it.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Interest rates are expected to be left unchanged as the Bank of England looks to balance the impact of higher rates on the UK economy.
Sluggish economic growth and signs that the country's job market is slowing down have led to predictions that rates will be held at 5.25%.
Rates had been hiked previously in a bid to slow the pace of price rises and are at the highest level for 15 years.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Victims of burglaries and domestic abuse are waiting up to 13 hours for the police to attend, new figures have revealed.
Data from police forces shows dramatically different response times across England and Wales.
Police took 13 and a half hours to respond to priority calls in Birmingham West last year, the longest wait in the country. It was 37 minutes in Bristol and Plymouth, according to figures disclosed in freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Operation Calibre will target habitual offenders in known hotspot areas to take them off the streets and the transport system.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) says there will be focus on the different strands of education, engagement, prevention and enforcement, all of which are important in reducing personal robbery.
A national week of action will be conducted by forces across the country during the month of November.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Volunteer police officers in a county are set to be armed with Taser stun guns.
Experienced Special Constables in Cheshire will now be able to train to use the devices following a change in legislation in 2022.
Volunteer officers, who have the same powers as paid officers, form "an integral and integrated part of frontline policing", the force said.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Police and security services have been told by Rishi Sunak to prepare for the prospect of a terror attack as tensions rise over the Israel-Hamas war. Yesterday the Prime Minister chaired an emergency meeting of Cobra at which ministers, police chiefs and security officials assessed the “accelerated” threat of domestic terrorism and the risk of public disorder.
[ more...]
Economy & Public Finance
Public services are crumbling and risk getting stuck in a perpetual state of crisis, a leading think tank has said.
In its annual report on the state of public services, the Institute for Government (IfG) said they were performing worse than before the pandemic and much worse than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
Funding cuts, a lack of capital investment and disruption caused by strikes have all contributed to the decline, the IfG said. Its report claimed that the government’s refusal to negotiate on public sector pay for months had extended the duration of strikes and brought more disruption.
[ more...]
Police Demand
Three quarters of burglaries and car thefts went unsolved over the past year, analysis has shown.
Almost 6,000 crimes a day went unsolved in the year to June, up 10 per cent on the previous year. In total, 214,076 burglaries went unsolved across England and Wales in the year ending in June — up 6 per cent compared with the previous year. Seventy-six per cent of burglaries went unsolved in the year to June, with only 6 per cent of burglaries leading to a charge or a summons.
In all 107,451 car thefts were closed without a suspect identified over the same period, up by 20 per cent from the previous year. It means that 77 per cent of car thefts went unsolved in that period. Only 4 per cent of car thefts resulted in a charge or summons.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
UK ministers will hold an emergency meeting of its Cobra committee amid concerns that the Israel-Gaza conflict has raised the possibility of a domestic terrorist incident.
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will meet national security officials and police at No 10 on Monday to assess the security risk after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel more than three weeks ago.
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, chaired a Cobra meeting on Thursday with figures from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office to discuss delivering aid to Gaza.
[ more...]
Police Finances
The Met has unveiled a raft of new and expanded victim services in order to better support a group the force admits has been "let down in the past".
One of the new initiatives is My Met Service, which allows victims to give instant feedback through rating the officer they have spoken to.
This process, done via a QR code, email or SMS, will inform frontline training and be used as an avenue to recognise good work.
Currently in the pilot stage, this service is being rolled out across London boroughs including Havering, Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Waltham Forest, Newham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets.
[ more...]
Police Finances
A new police station believed to be the smallest in the country has been opened in Sussex to tackle a nationwide epidemic of serious knife crime and shoplifting.
The new station in Crawley, West Sussex, measures just 8ft x 8ft x 6ft and was announced in response to a spate of recent stabbings.
In February, an 18-year-old man died after being stabbed close to the town’s train station.
[ more...]
Technology
Police are being encouraged to double their use of retrospective facial recognition software to track down offenders over the next six months.
Policing minister Chris Philp has written to force chiefs suggesting the target of exceeding 200,000 searches of still images against the Police National Database by May using facial recognition technology.
He also is encouraging police to operate live facial recognition cameras more widely.
[ more...]
Police Finances
As part of the fifth round of Safer Streets funding, PCCs will receive cash injections to invest in a range of prevention activities to make public spaces safer and reduce the fear of crime.
The scheme will run from this month for an 18-month period until March 2025.
Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) joint national prevention lead, Festus Akinbusoye, said: “I am delighted that PCCs have secured a further £42 million of Safer Streets funding to complement their existing work targeting anti-social behaviour, VAWG and neighbourhood crimes.
“The APCC has been instrumental in the delivery of this opportunity, gathering the views of PCCs and sharing them with the Home Office to inform how best to spend this funding.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Picture: Brian A Jackson / Shutterstock
These extra patrols, along with hundreds more arrests and stop and searches, were just one part of the Government’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, launched six months ago.
The latest data from police and crime commissioners (PCCs) shows that since hotspot uniformed patrols have been rolled out in ten pilot areas, there have been more than 250 arrests, over 600 stop and searches and around 1,000 other enforcement actions such as community protection notices and public protection orders.
Crime and Policing Minister Chris Philp said: “Anti-social behaviour ruins neighbourhoods and brings fear and misery to local people, be it people smoking cannabis in the street, intimidating gatherings in public spaces or acts of vandalism.
[ more...]
Police and Crime General
Criminals will not always be forced to attend sentencing, the Justice Secretary has said, because of fears it could be used as propaganda.
Alex Chalk said that judges will have discretion to decide whether to force convicted criminals to come to court for sentencing under legislation expected to be announced in the King’s Speech next month.
[ more...]