London has been rocked by a wave of petty crime with pickpocketing up 38 per cent and shoplifting up 48 per cent in a year, new figures show.
The Met Police and City of London Police recorded 944,823 total offences in the year up to June 2024, a rise of 5 per cent on the previous year, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
Officers reported 89,879 offences of theft from the person, which covers incidents such as pickpocketing and phone snatching. It is a rise of 38 per cent on the figure recorded in the previous period.
Nearly a third (32.9 per cent) of these offences took place in Westminster, where pickpockets have targeted tourists and families.
Earlier this year, Westminster City councillor Laila Cunningham called for improved CCTV coverage and police patrols in the Queensway area to deter criminals.
London’s most notorious phone snatcher Sonny Stringer, 28, was jailed earlier this year for stealing 24 phones in one morning.
Analysis of data by the Standard reveals:
- Shoplifting offences have increased by 48 per cent in the capital with more than 70,000 incidents recorded in a year
- Overall theft has risen by 10 per cent, with an average of 1,278 theft offences recorded every day
- The number of knife crime offences recorded in London has reached its highest level in 13 years, with 15,859 offences reported
- Violent crimes have seen a small increase of 1 per cent, while 4 per cent less homicides were reported compared with last year
- Drug offences have fallen by 14 per cent compared with last year
London is one of only two regions, including the South West, to have recorded an overall rise in offences in a year. The British Transport Police saw the greatest annual increase in recorded offences of any force, with a rise of 18 per cent.
The number of recorded offences fell in every other region, and decreased nationally by 4 per cent.
Nationally, police forces recorded a 29 per cent rise in shoplifting offences. The total of 469,788 offences is the highest since current records began in the year to March 2003.
Major retailers have recently raised concerns about the increased cost of theft and the Government has vowed to tackle low-level shoplifting and make assaulting a shop worker a specific criminal offence.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the data showed the “scale of the challenge we have inherited in our mission to make streets safer.”
She added: “Too many town centres have been decimated by record levels of shoplifting, and communities have been left shaken by rising levels of knife crime, snatch theft and robbery. This cannot continue.
“This Government will restore neighbourhood policing across the country, put thousands more dedicated officers out on our streets and scrap the £200 shoplifting threshold, bringing an end to the effective impunity for thieves who steal low value goods.”
