London's crime epidemic is far worse than people realise

Telegraph

18-07-2025

I want to defend London; I really do. But it's not an easy task – which is strange for a city that has been voted the best in the world for a tenth consecutive year. I can only imagine that the team behind 'World's Best Cities' hasn't been to the capital. Or perhaps they don't have eyes or ears.
Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. What matters is that London is a mess, and it seems to be getting worse. Each new week presents a fresh horror to sully our capital city's once-great reputation. This week it's crime – that old chestnut. We now know it's far worse than people realise.
A recent study by Claire Waxman, London's first independent victims' commissioner, found that a mere 40 per cent of crimes in London are reported. Of that number, a further 40 per cent of victims withdraw from the justice process before a charging decision is made.
Why? Because they don't believe they can get a conviction. They've lost faith in the criminal justice system. We all have. The figures are even worse for domestic abuse victims: six out of ten withdraw from the justice process altogether. That figure rises to 74 per cent in cases of rape related to domestic abuse.
According to Waxman's report, police are actively dissuading victims from pursuing charges. But the Met aren't entirely to blame. The courts are also a stinking mess. Right now, there are 77,000 cases waiting to be heard. One hundred cases won't go to trial until 2029. That's four years until a victim – a person courageous enough to step forward – can experience any semblance of justice. For want of a better phrase, you're taking the proverbial.
I worry about what this means for London's future. The current situation is unsustainable. The public is tired. In Waxman's report, one domestic abuse victim was quoted as saying: 'There have been cases of people being stabbed to death and we have their faces on CCTV but they still don't get a conviction, so this won't go anywhere.' Quite literally, criminals are getting away with murder.
But whilst bemoaning the state of the criminal justice system is understandable, it doesn't get the victims any closer to justice. And I fear that people will start to take justice into their own hands. This isn't a good thing. A vigilante group is only one false accusation away from becoming a lynch mob. Besides, we shouldn't be forced to protect ourselves. We pay into the police precept for a reason: so that the police can handle the law for us.
London is already hard enough: rising rents, shoddy transport, polluted skies. The last thing we need is to start spending our evenings wandering around the streets with baseball bats in our hands and thoughts of a brighter tomorrow. This isn't The Purge.
But London certainly isn't Kansas anymore, Toto. A pint is £8. The Tube network is like the arteries of a very ill man. A room the size of an airing cupboard that smells of urine and the Gruffalo's armpit will set you back £1000 a month.
Having your phone nicked is a rite of passage. And now it seems like stabbing someone to death will get you nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a tousle of the hair. But complaining about the declining state of London will only get us so far. Instead, we should be asking the only question that matters: what are our bodies of power going to do to fix it? And when?