Police failed to attend 70pc of car thefts last year
Police failed to attend more than 70 per cent of car thefts last year despite an increase in incidents, official figures show.
Some 30,900 car thefts had no police officer attending the scene in 2023, accounting for 72 per cent of all cases, according to the figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats under freedom of information laws.
The number of unattended thefts has risen dramatically compared to previous years, up 32 per cent on 2021, which saw 22,979 unattended car theft incidents.
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, called the figures “shocking” and accused the Government of “failing to get a grip on the car theft epidemic across the country”.
Cambridgeshire was the worst performing police force, with 1,156 incidents of car theft going unattended, accounting for 90 per cent of all cases.
Bedfordshire also scored poorly with 88 per cent of car thefts unattended. Derbyshire and Avon and Somerset recorded 87 per cent of incidents unattended.
Wiltshire, by comparison, was the highest performing force with only 12 per cent unattended, although it had one of the lowest number of incidents to respond to with 634 car thefts in 2023. Cumbria closely followed with 21 per cent, also a force with a low number of thefts at 352.
‘Traumatic experience’
Three-quarters of car thefts are going unsolved. Some 107,451 offences were closed without a suspect being identified in the year ending June 2023, up 20 per cent from the previous year. Just 4 per cent of car thefts resulted in a suspect being charged or summonsed.
Mr Davey said: “No wonder the vast majority of car thefts are going unsolved if officers aren’t even showing up at the scene for most of these cases. Having your car stolen is a traumatic experience but knowing that the criminal will get away with it and the police won’t turn up makes it even worse.”
Car hacking technology bought online by organised crime gangs is fuelling an almost 20 per cent rise in vehicle thefts, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed.
Criminals are increasingly turning to devices that enable them to hack into and drive off with high-end cars, without needing to steal the keys, the NCA’s annual national threat assessment report said.
The so-called “electronic compromise” thefts also bypass keyless fobs, which have been the subject of increased security by car manufacturers after being targeted by thieves in recent years.
On Monday, it emerged that increasing numbers of thieves are towing cars from driveways or the side of the road in broad daylight. Car security companies noted an “alarming” rise in these types of thefts with criminals often wearing high-visibility clothing in an attempt to appear legitimate.
Bryn Brooker, the head of road safety at Nextbase, a dash cam company, said thieves were “stepping up their game” and using increasingly brazen tactics.
“These are sophisticated professionals who know what they are doing,” he said, adding that towing the vehicle “reduces the chance of them being caught and makes the whole operation faster”.
Local police investigation teams have had their number cut by 210 officers between 2022 and 2023, according to the latest Home Office workforce statistics.
The Lib Dems said this is on top of a 2021 estimate by the National Police Chiefs’ Council of a national shortfall of almost 7,000 detectives.
The party urged the Government to draw up a national recruitment, training and retention strategy to tackle the shortage of detectives.
