peMetropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has described London as a “fantastically safe” city – despite figures showing 885 murders in the capital since 2015.
The head of Britain’s biggest police force said the capital is a place to “live, work and enjoy yourself” as he visited a boxing gym in Ilford, east London, on Thursday.
But figures show an increase in homicides between April 2021 and March 2022, with 124 recorded by the Police in London in comparison to 119 the previous reporting year.
Yui Mok
Alongside mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the commissioner met Box Up Crime founder Stephen Addison, who set up the club to provide vulnerable young people with a community and a path away from crime.
It came as the force promised it was cracking down on offences targeting youngsters, releasing figures which showed the number of teenage killings halved in 2022.
Sir Mark said: “London is a fantastically safe global city. Of course no city’s perfect, but if you look at crime rates… it’s a safe place to live and work and enjoy yourself.”
He was pressed on his plan to root out criminal behaviour within the Met after a string of high-profile convictions of officers for serious offences.
Asked about his plans to rebuild public trust in the force, he said: “I have got tens of thousands of men and women who are fantastic people, who care and want to make a difference.
“Sadly I’ve got hundreds I need to sort out and who shouldn’t be in the organisation and as we do that you’ll hear more.
“But I’ve got many, many more people who care about Londoners than some of those awful individuals that should never have been police officers.”
Yui Mok
In figures reported by Statista, there were 124 reported homicide offences recorded by the police in London between April 2021 and March 2022, with 119 reported in 2020/21.
Over the previous seven years there have been 885 homicide offences recorded, with 159 of those happening between April 2017 and March 2018.
The website also reports that knives are the weapon of choice in the capital, with knife crime offences rising in London from 9.7 thousand in 2015/16 to 15.59 thousand by 2019/20.
The Met has vowed to increase high-visibility patrols and boost community policing focused on preventing robbery after recent figures from Ilford showed 36% of mugging victims were aged 18 or younger.
It said there had been 71 arrests for robbery since November.
The total number of homicides recorded under Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) for 2022 is 109, which is 17 percent down on 2021, the Met said.
Nine homicides were gun enabled in 2022, which was a 25 percent fall and the lowest figure since 2014.
A total of 69 homicides were knife enabled, which was a 17 percent reduction and equal to the pre-pandemic figure for 2019.