West Midlands Police fails to record more than 16,000 violent crimes, watchdog says

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West Midlands Police is “letting down victims” by failing to record more than 16,600 violent crimes each year, a watchdog has found.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services rated the force “inadequate” and said the way it records serious offences was “unacceptable”.

The inspectorate found that only 78 per cent of violent crime and 89 per cent of sexual offences reported to West Midlands Police were recorded. In some cases, officers were found to have dismissed victims by “simply not believing them”.

The report stated: “The recording rates for violent crime and sexual offences remain a cause of concern. Too often the force is still failing victims of crime, including domestic abuse victims.”

It added: “By our estimate the force is now failing to record over 16,600 violent crimes that are reported to it each year. As violent crime can be particularly distressing for the victim, and many of these crimes involve injury, the recording rate remains unacceptable and must be urgently addressed.”

West Midlands Police claimed to have made “substantial progress” on its recording process. Deputy Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe said the watchdog had failed to recognise the strengths of the force in recording crime overall.

She said: “It is frustrating that, despite substantial progress, our grading has remained as inadequate. This report focuses upon our inspection of reports of violent crime and sexual offences.

“It does not include the results of other crimes, and consequently it has not recognised the force’s overall crime recording from which we have good, reliable crime accuracy.”

West Midlands Police was initially rated as inadequate for recording crime in 2017, and then re-examined for violent crime and sexual offences in 2018. Of the 2,176 reports of crime audited, 470 related to domestic abuse. Of these, only 354 were recorded.

The 116 which were not recorded included 95 offences classed as violent such as common assaults, ABH, harassment and malicious communications.

The report said: “We found several examples of attending officers letting down victims by simply not believing them. Some incident logs contained closing comments that were completely different to the initial call and recorded no crime, without an adequate explanation.”

Ms Rolfe said the force was confident its position was “much improved,” and claimed it could not be criticised for failing to pump more resources into crime recording.

The inspectorate also published a report on Leicestershire, which was also rated as “inadequate”. While there were some improvements for 2018, the watchdog found that the overall recording rate and the rates for violent crime and sexual offences were too low.

In 2018 the Leicestershire force recorded around 84 per cent of reported crime, including 79 per cent of violent crime and 88 per cent of sexual offences.

Inspectors also highlighted that the force does not record all reports of rape, domestic abuse offences, or crimes against vulnerable people reported directly to its public protection department.

Leicestershire Chief Constable Simon Cole said the overall compliance rate was “just behind the national average” and that improvement plans were in place.

Kate Russell, a spokeswoman for Rape Crisis England & Wales, described the reports as “seriously concerning”. She said: “Anyone who reports a sexual offence should be treated with respect, empathy and impartiality and have their report properly investigated.”

Victim Support spokeswoman Diana Fawcett said the findings had “the potential to undermine public trust in the criminal justice system”.

Kent Police’s crime recording was found to have improved dramatically since 2017, according to the inspectorate’s latest report. The watchdog rated the force “outstanding” said Kent officers were recording an additional 25,400 crimes a year.

Additional reporting by Press Association