Cops abandoned four unsolved crimes every minute last year – as Labour accuse Tories of gutting neighbourhood policing

POLICE abandoned four unsolved crimes every minute last year.

Officers failed to identify a suspect in more than half of robberies, six in ten criminal damage and arson cases and seven in ten thefts and burglaries, figures from the Home Office show.

More than 2.2million criminal investigations were closed without a culprit in the first half of 2024.

That is 41.3 per cent of all cases and 4.2 crimes a minute.

Labour blamed the alarming stats on previous Conservative governments cutting the number of community support officers by half since 2010 - which they claim is 9,000 staff.

Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said: “The last Government carried out a demolition job on neighbourhood policing, decimating numbers across England and Wales.

“It’s no wonder that more than half of the public now say they never see a bobby on the beat.”

Labour has pledged to recruit an extra 13,000 neighborhood police officers, while cracking down on anti-social behaviour.

In March, a mum slammed "lazy" cops who she claimed failed to spot her daughter was at home minutes before she took her own life.

Police had been called to Rhiana Jones' house in Barry, Wales, to conduct a welfare check amid fears the mum-of-three was "suicidal".

The two officers got no answer at the front door so spoke on the phone with Rhiana, who claimed she was walking her dog as she needed to "clear her head".

An inquest heard they were satisfied "110 per cent" she was not inside and therefore did not search the area, including her garden, or make house-to-house inquiries.

Rhiana told the officers she would be back in 15 minutes but when she failed to return, they left.

Within around 20 minutes of the cops leaving, the 27-year-old took her own life.