Britain’s largest police force has said it is doing all it can to bring thieves to justice after figures suggested 95% of burglaries and robberies across the UK are not being solved.



The Metropolitan police said they were putting a “huge amount of effort” into tackling a rise in crime related to motor scooters, which they said had reduced.

They said burglary presented particular challenges in finding culprits, however they have accepted more work needs to be done to tackle such crimes.

There are fears over a wave of criminality in parts of the country, with scooter thefts attracting particular concern after a number of high-profile incidents.

On Sunday the home secretary, Sajid Javid, revealed he fell victim to thieves on a motor scooter who stole his phone and earlier this month, the comedian Michael McIntyre was robbed of his watch by scooter-riding thieves.

Scotland Yard said its London sanction detection rates – the way it measures cases that are solved – were 5.5% for burglary and 7% for robbery between April 2017 and April 2018.

That compared with an overall rate of 13.2% for all offences included in the statistics.

“Solving crime is a key priority for the Met and we are committed to doing all we can to cut crime, pursue offenders and support victims to make London even safer,” a spokeswoman said.

“Burglary presents particular challenges in regard to identifying those responsible and we accept there is more work to be done – and are always seeking ways to increase the number of these crimes we solve.

“A number of robbery offences can be attributed to scooter-related crime. The Met has been putting a huge amount of effort into stemming the rise in these offences and bringing offenders to justice.”

National police data shows the proportion of suspects who are caught and punished for all crimes has more than halved to 9% over the past five years, according to the Sunday Times.

The figures also suggested only 4% of robberies were solved in England and Wales in 2017, compared with 9% in 2013. The burglary detection rate halved from 6% to 3% in the same period.