Crime Logging: Five Times Police Got It Wrong

An inspection of police forces has found that 800,000 offences a year were not logged as crimes.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary carried out extensive research into how offences are recorded, and gave detailed examples of how the system has failed members of the public.

:: Child Rape Claim

A 13-year-old reported that she had been raped by an 18-year-old boy.

The victim was unclear about some of the details of the crime and a full investigation was carried out.

There were no witnesses, and no evidence was found to prove that the rape had happened.

From the investigation notes it appeared the officers did not believe the victim and had no-crimed the report as a result.

:: Phone Theft

An inspector was visiting the front counter of a police station when a member of the public approached the counter clerk.

She told the clerk that her mobile phone had been stolen along with her handbag and £40.

The clerk told her that unless the serial number of the mobile phone could be produced, then no crime would be recorded.

The theft of the bag and money was completely ignored, according to inspectors.

:: Woods Rape Report

A woman made a complaint of rape. She knew her attacker, and had had intimate relations with him on at least one occasion in the past, when she had asked him to stop.

On the day of the alleged rape, she had been drunk and had been taken by her attacker for a walk to sober up.

He took her into a wood and told her to take off some of her clothing, which she did. He then had sex with her.

She had told her attacker that she did not want to be there and there was some evidence that she was intimidated by her attacker.

Whilst police had initially recorded the incident as a rape, they no-crimed it on the basis that because she had taken some of her clothes off, she must be presumed to have consented to sex, despite her insistence that she did not.

:: Pensioner's Missing Handbag

The police received a call from a 90-year-old woman reporting that her handbag had been stolen from her house.

Her front door was broken and not closing properly. The police officer went to the house and described the lady as a bit confused.

The handbag was not found and there was no credible evidence to say that it had not been stolen. There was no reason to disbelieve the victim, the report said, and a crime of burglary should have been recorded, but was not.

:: Trainer Robbery

A young woman was punched and kicked and her new trainers and house keys were taken from her. The crime was recorded correctly as a robbery by the initial reporting officer.

Later, the investigating officer decided that her shoes had probably fallen off and had been lost so the crime was reclassified as an assault.

The report said there was no justification for this.