Car crime 'ignored'

Figures unearthed by the Gazette under the Freedom of Information Act showed that 87.5 per cent of the offences were 'screened out' in 2007.

Police officers can effectively drop crimes if they believe there is little chance of them ever being solved.

Decisions as to whether a crime is detectable are made based on what evidence, such as CCTV, finger prints and witness accounts, is available.

A West Drayton resident, whose wife's car was targeted by vandals, was unsurprised by the statistic.

The father of one was told earlier this month that the case was being dropped despite having a suspect that he believes he could identify.

He said: "I've insisted on occasions that they come out and check for finger prints and sometimes they do reluctantly. I'm really not surprised. Particularly in this end of the borough they treat everyone differently.

"I've been told that it's not worth reporting it. We're told crime levels are dropping but I think it's the level of crime being reported that's dropping. People just don't see the point."

Figures also showed that 60 per cent of burglaries were shelved, followed by 14.3 per cent of gun crime and 7.3 per cent of knife crime.

No robberies, homophobic crime or rapes were screened out.

But Superintendent Peter Withers of Hillingdon Police argued that burglary and motor vehicle offences where crimes which were 'challenging' to solve because there are not always suspects or leads to identify them.

He said: "We have robust systems in place to ensure all leads and opportunities are maximised. When specific crimes have no leads or suspects offences are screened out in order for us to focus our efforts on solvable crime.

"We are not complacent and always looking to improve our performance."

He added that Smartwater, a forensic fluid painted onto household items which leaves a fingerprint encoded with the owner's details, was being used to reduce burglaries and equipment like automatic number plate read-ers had resulted in a 20 per cent overall reduction in vehicle crime last year.