Revealed: Full scale of domestic abuse in London as police deal with 76,000 incidents in one year

Hannah Al-Othman21 August 2016
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The shocking scale of domestic abuse in London has been revealed, with 76,385 incidents reported to police in a year - more than 200 every day.

The data, recorded between May 2015 and April 2016, the latest time period for which figures are available, showed that more than 61,500 of these offences related to violence against the person, while 2,311 were sexual offences.

Victims also reported a range of other crimes including robbery and criminal damage.

Of the incidents reported to police, 14,631 have so far resulted in a charge or court summons, although several thousand offenders have been dealt with by way of a caution or community resolution, and more than 8,600 cases were still awaiting an outcome.

However, tens of thousands of cases were dropped due to lack of evidence, or because police or the Crown Prosecution Service decided it was not in the public interest to proceed.

In total, more than 40 per cent of cases were dropped, despite a suspect being identified, due to what police described as "evidential difficulties", while a further 7,054 were discontinued because the case was not deemed to be in the public interest.

Of the 72,487 victims, almost a quarter were men, while more than 2,000 were under 18.

The data, released under the Freedom of Information Act, did not include child victims unless they were also an informant or witness, as offences against children are recorded separately by Scotland Yard.

In a statement, a Met Police spokeswoman said cases of domestic abuse were dealt with in Community Safety Units, which operate in every London borough.

She said: "Specialist training for officers is at the heart of our approach, and we have increased the numbers of officers and staff working across our dedicated borough based Community Safety Units to bring the total up to just over 900.

"All frontline officers working in borough policing now get additional specialist training in domestic abuse, incorporating updates on the latest legislation, investigative techniques, victim care and how to best target offenders.

"We are looking at all the ways in which new technology can be used to increase our effectiveness in bringing domestic abuse offenders to justice, from giving officers fast time access to digital copies of 999 calls, to the use of body worn video to capture best evidence and electronic handheld devices to record statements and photographs at the scene.

"We are also working with criminal justice organisations to explore how we can make the system more responsive, for example through the possibility of using remote video technology to assist the most vulnerable victims to give evidence, and the piloting of two specialist DV courts to speed up the process for victims."

David Bartlett, CEO of domestic violence charity, the White Ribbon Campaign said: "These statistics show that violence against women and girls is still a massive issue in our society, and the vast majority of this abuse and violence is carried out by men."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in