Figures from the Metropolitan Police reportedly show that thousands of shoplifters have avoided an investigation because the items they stole were worth less than £50.

According to The Times, telephone operators working for Britain’s biggest police force have been told to dismiss crimes of low value so resources can be focused on more serious offences.

A Freedom of Information request on behalf of the paper found that Met Police policy is to assess ‘out’ the crime if the value of the offence is less than £50 or if the suspect is not known.

Some 20,000 shoplifting reports were ‘screened out’ between September 2017 and August 2018, according to Met statistics – essentially writing off the crime, with no further action taken.

The Times reports that the Met quietly introduced the policy last April, before they were leaked to a newspaper.

Other crimes also appear to be affected by the policy – Met statistics show nearly 33,000 offences of criminal damage were not pursued in the same time period, while 12,596 robberies were also not investigated.

Commenting on the report, a Met Police spokesperson told Yahoo News UK: ‘The Telephone and Digital Investigation Unit (TDIU) was launched in April 2017 and aims to provide the public with a wider range of options when reporting crime, as well as reducing demand on response officers allowing them to prioritise the most serious incidents.

‘Between April and December 2017 the TDIU dealt with 37% of crimes reported to the Met in that time period. Between January and October 2018 the unit dealt with 39% of all reported crimes.

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‘Around 30% of the unit’s demand comes through online reporting, with the remaining 70% originating from calls made to MetCC which following careful consideration, are then transferred to the unit.’

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons, in charge of local policing, said: ‘Every crime reported to us is investigated, whether that’s through face to face contact with an officer or detective or through alternative routes such as the TDIU. But like any organisation we have got a budget to work to, we have demand to meet, and have to make decisions about what we prioritise.

‘We have to take a clear view about what is most important for Londoners in terms of safety. We continually look at ways of reducing demand on response officers and examples include the diversion of calls that do not require a face to face response to our Local Resolution Team or to the TDIU.’

He added: ‘We have to admit there are going to be crimes that we are responding differently to than we would have in the past, but it is not to say that because a response team won’t be deployed to an incident that these crimes won’t be investigated in a different way.

‘The TDIU investigates a wide range of crimes including shoplifting, vehicle theft, criminal damage, assault, and burglary. All incidents of crime are of the utmost importance, but of course I would much rather our detectives are investigating stabbings and diverting gang members rather than dealing with some of the work which was possible to do when numbers were not so tight.

‘I know this may cause concern to members of the public and perhaps lead to fears that fewer offences will be prosecuted, but I must stress that detection rates for crimes being investigated by the TDIU have not fallen.

‘We cannot do everything in the way we could before, crime is continually changing and adapting, and our numbers are fewer. We have had to realign our resources and invest more in different areas to meet the challenges we are facing. I want to reassure the public that we are here and will do everything in our power to help.’