London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

Almost 1.5m England and Wales crime victims opt not to pursue cases

Almost 1.5m England and Wales crime victims opt not to pursue cases

Annual figures indicate ‘dramatic collapse’ in confidence in criminal justice system, says Labour
Almost 1.5 million victims of crime in England and Wales have decided not to pursue their cases, feeding concern that public confidence in the criminal justice system has collapsed.

Home Office figures unearthed by Labour show there were 1,411,650 victims who did not support continuing action after they had reported a crime in the year to March 2022.

The figures come after the police’s official inspectorate said that a failure to stop thieves and burglars threatens police’s “bond of trust” with the public.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the figures show a dramatic collapse in confidence in the criminal justice system.

“Victims are being let down and criminals are getting off scot-free.

“Instead of a plan to increase prosecutions, the Conservative leadership candidates are just focusing on headlines and gimmicks.

“Rather than cutting neighbourhood police, Labour would restore neighbourhood policing to our streets to keep communities safe,” she said.

Andy Cooke, the chief inspector of constabulary, warned after the publication of a damning report on Thursday that “the public is likely to lose confidence in forces’ ability to keep them safe”.

He told Sky News that forces had “a lot of inexperience at the moment”, with 31% of officers having completed under five years of service.

He added that police forces spent a significant amount of time dealing with issues that would previously have been dealt with by “other parts of the system”, such as mental health issues.

Labour’s analysis examined official government data released last month that showed the outcomes assigned to offences recorded in the year to March 2021 and year to March 2022.

More than 900,000 victims of violence, over 95,000 victims of criminal damage, and over 75,000 victims of sexual offences have given up hope of seeing a conviction, the party said.

In 1.1m of those 1.4m cases closed because a victim no longer wanting to pursue a case, a suspect had been identified by police. However, the number of cases where a suspect was not identified has also increased by 30% on the previous year.

In 2015, just over 8% of investigations collapsed due to victims dropping out. Yet according to the latest figures, that proportion has increased to more than 26%.

The Conservatives have promised to bring forward a victims bill in consecutive manifestos. After it was raised in the latest Queen’s speech, it is still in draft form.

So far, 68% of the 20,000 officers promised by Boris Johnson to replace those lost during Conservative cuts have been recruited.

Liz Truss, who is the current favourite to become prime minister following the resignation of Johnson, has pledged a 20% reduction in serious offences such as homicide, and a similar cut in other key crimes including burglary, by the time of the next election. She has also called for league tables for police forces, which has concerned chief constables.

Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, has sought to woo Tory party members concerned by so-called culture wars by calling for police to focus fewer resources on those causing offence on social media.

A government spokesperson said: “Through our rape review action plan, we are working to make sure the system works better. We are recruiting more sexual violence advisers, 20,000 additional police officers, rolling out prerecorded evidence faster, improving collaboration between the police and Crown Prosecution Service and boosting funding for victim support services to a minimum £440m over the next three years.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×