Peter Hitchens says we have no ‘serious police force’

Britain lacks a “serious” criminal justice system and police force, according to commentator Peter Hitchens.

His comments come as Home Office data for England and Wales released earlier this month revealed the proportion of crimes resulting in a charge or summons was 5.7 percent – a slight increase on the previous year.

Mr Hitchens said shop staff are in a “terrible” position, being unable to tackle shoplifting alone and not receiving the backing of the law if they do.

He also claimed employers are complacent about the crime due to the “legal dangers being so great”. His comments came after Mr Hitchens wrote about a “wave” of shoplifting in the UK, with the Co-Op recently accusing police of abandoning many of its shops.

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Asked about a “shoplifting epidemic”, Mr Hitchens told TalkTV on Monday: “For many, many years it’s been obvious to those who are observant in this country that there is no real law against an awful lot of crime.

“Fortunately, most of the less important people in the country, from whom the larger number of criminals come, they haven’t realised this.

“Now you’ve actually the people who are trying to commit crime realising on a large scale they can get away with doing so. If they can get away with doing so simply taking stuff from shops with nothing happening to them, how long will it be before they start having other ideas about what they can just take away?

“It is now becoming evident on a mass scale that we have no serious criminal justice system and no serious police force and it’s very, very frightening.”

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The Home Office data, which covers a 12-month period from April 2022 onwards, showed 2.3 million crimes were dropped without a suspect being found.

The charge rate for sexual offences was 3.6 percent, rape at 2.1 percent while only 6.5 percent of robbery offences ended with someone being charged.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the figures were a “national scandal” as Labour pledged to boost the numbers of crimes solved if the party were to win the next general election.

The Opposition said it would introduce a new requirement for police forces to run direct recruitment of detectives to reverse a national shortage, with plans to bring in individuals from fields such as business fraud investigations and child protection.

Labour said fewer than half of police forces have such a scheme currently.

Ms Cooper said: “After 13 years of Tory government, over 90 percent of crimes are going unsolved. That is the abysmal Conservative record on law and order – more criminals being let off and more victims being let down.”

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A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Since 2010, our communities are safer – with neighbourhood crimes including burglary, robbery and theft down 51 percent and serious violent crime down 46 percent.

“The Government has delivered more police officers than ever in England and Wales and the Home Secretary expects police to improve public confidence by getting the basics right – catching more criminals and delivering justice for victims.

“As part of the Beating Crime Plan, we have also committed to giving every single person in England and Wales access to the police digitally through a national online platform.

“This will allow the public to access a range of interactive police services in one place, including information on neighbourhood police officers and their contact details, allowing them to raise concerns with neighbourhood officers directly.”

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