One in three bobbies on the beat have been axed since 2015.

In total, more than 7,000 neighbourhood police officers have either left the force or have been re-assigned to administrative and back-office roles in the last three years.

The analysis of Home Office statistics by The Sunday Times found the numbers of bobbies on the beat fell by a third, from 23,928 in March 2015 to 16,557 in March 2018.

The number of community support officers also fell by 18 per cent over the same period.

Ministers had made pledges to protect frontline policing, but the number of officers assigned to administrative roles has grown by a quarter.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics found that recorded incidents of violent crime in England and Wales have nearly doubled since 2015. There were 778,000 recorded incidents in 2015 compared to nearly 1.4million from March 2017-18.