Targets 'distort crime recording'

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Government pressure to meet targets for less serious crimes is forcing detectives off major investigations, a Police Federation report has claimed.

In one case an officer stopped hunting a paedophile ring to focus on solving burglaries, it said.

The federation that added its own six-month study revealed 2,000 vacant detective posts in England and Wales.

Police Minister Tony McNulty said the federation was exaggerating the situation in order "to make a point".

Mr McNulty told ITV1's Tonight with Trevor MacDonald: "When they talk constantly about neighbourhood policing and the failures of PCSOs, that's not what I get out on the streets all the time.

'Over-egged'

"I respect their views. I just think they over-egg and exaggerate to make a point, sometimes to the detriment of the members and that's not in their own interests."

But, according to the figures on vacant detective posts gathered through the National Detectives' Forum - a subsidiary of the Police Federation - there is a chronic shortage of sufficiently qualified officers.

And Alan Gordon, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, told the programme that pressure to hit crime-figure targets is distorting the way crime is recorded.

He said that, in order to meet the targets, detectives were being re-deployed from in-depth investigations of grave crimes to tackle less serious crimes that were more easily solved.

Some of the staffing levels have reached an appallingly low scale Alan Gordon, vice-chairman, Police Federation of England and Wales

Some forces were artificially deflating crime statistics by encouraging people whose mobile phones had been stolen to report them as having been lost, he said.

Mr Gordon added: "One officer told us that he was actually investigating a paedophile ring which he considered to be still active, but at that time the force were under considerable pressure to reduce crime in a particular area such as burglary.

"If he'd arrested the paedophiles it would still have only been one tick in the box, and therefore no more importance was attached to that than actually investigating burglaries.

"I think that was a very harsh indication of how policing activity has been skewed and directed in the wrong way by the target regime which has been imposed on us."

Mr Gordon said the dearth of adequately qualified officers meant inquiries into serious crimes were being led by officers with insufficient experience.

"Some of the staffing levels have reached an appallingly low scale.

Life from Mars is great, the Sweeney's great, the Bill is great - you never see them filling out a form Detective Will Whale,Southampton CID

"We were given examples: in the city of Sheffield just one detective on duty for nights. And that officer would be expected to attend every serious assault, an allegation of rape, a serious burglary, whatever."

Detective Will Whale, from Southampton CID, said their unit was four detectives short.

He told the programme: "The administration in the police is huge. Life from Mars is great, the Sweeney's great, the Bill is great - you never see them filling out a form.

"I think the police service has to look at itself sometimes and should say at some stage - enough.

"Stop looking at the police officers' performance levels in such a way that it doesn't allow them to do their job."