Public will see police chase down all reasonable leads, Suella Braverman announces

Steve Watson, its chief constable, said that GMP would respond to every report of burglary that it receives, as he ordered the force to investigate all crimes and reasonable leads that the public report.

The Telegraph reported this week that both Ms Braverman and Chris Philp, the policing minister, are drawing up plans to roll the approach out all over the UK following GMP’s success.

This comes after forces across the country have come under repeated criticism for ignoring evidence on crimes reported by the public, with victims losing confidence in police in their area.

These crimes include the theft of items such as mobile phones which are stolen and then sold to second-hand technology stores, and despite members of the public being able to track the location of their phone, many forces have been unwilling or unable to bring the criminals to justice.

“All victims of theft deserve more from the police and justice system than simply a crime number, and they should expect all reasonable lines of enquiry should be followed up,” the Home Secretary said.

Ms Braverman yesterday insisted that forces currently have sufficient resources to correctly investigate all of these crimes.

The College of Policing, which sets standards and good practice for the country’s forces, published guidance to consider all potential evidence such as CCTV, doorbell cameras, dashcams and phone tracking, if it could lead to the recovery of stolen property and the apprehension of suspects.

Ms Braverman said that no crime is “minor” as she hailed the announcement as a “landmark”.

“The police have a record number of men and women working on their front line than ever before. So they have the numbers of people who are there,” she told BBC Breakfast.

“This is about ensuring that those resources are properly diverted to what I call common sense policing, back-to-basics policing, that they don’t dismiss certain crimes as unimportant or minor.

“It’s about ensuring that they are freed up from doing other time-consuming tasks.

She said that Government efforts were “about freeing up police time from needless bureaucracy”.

More than 20,000 extra recruits joined police forces in the past three years, but it followed thousands of job cuts under the Conservatives as part of a series of austerity measures.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “This is a staggering admission of 13 years of Tory failure on policing and crime.

“Pursuing reasonable leads like CCTV is what the police should be doing, but – because of abysmal Tory management – over 90% of crimes go unsolved, the proportion of crimes prosecuted has dropped by more than two-thirds and more criminals are getting off.

“Instead of supporting our brave officers to catch criminals, the Conservative government have cut neighbourhood policing by nearly 10,000, left a 7,000 shortage of detectives and allowed the growth of appalling delays between the police, CPS and courts.

“The fact that the Tories are boasting about asking the police to do the basic minimum that victims of crime should rightly expect, whilst failing to tackle the underlying problems they have caused, shows how badly they have failed over the last 13 years.

“The Tories are weak on crime and the causes of crime. Labour will put 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs back on our streets, increase detective recruitment and ensure more crimes are charged to keep our streets safe.”