Data helps Met Police convict 100 men who targeted women

BBC News

20-03-2025

A data-driven approach to tackling violence against women and girls has led to more than 100 of the "most dangerous offenders" in London being convicted, according to the Metropolitan Police.The force said its V100 programme, which uses data to identify and target men who pose the highest risk to women, had enabled officers to focus efforts on reducing the threat posed by perpetrators and to protect potential victims.Some 126 people had been charged with 574 offences, including rape, grievous bodily harm and attempted murder, the Met said.The force said this was achieved by using victim reports of crime alongside other data to rank suspects in priority order.
The scheme is part of the force's A New Met for London plan, aimed at delivering "more trust, less crime, and high standards".Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ben Russell, the Met's V100 lead, said: "Reaching 100 convictions is an important milestone, but our work is far from over. "This is about more than just statistics or crime reports. It's about ensuring that every woman in London feels seen, heard, and protected."
'Powerful achievement'
The Met said significant convictions included Jason Phinn, 36, of Bournville, Birmingham, who was jailed for the manslaughter of his mother at their home in Brixton in November 2023. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison at Croydon Crown Court.Louis Collins, 30, of no fixed address, was handed a life sentence at Kingston Crown Court for rape, kidnap and 22 other related offences in July 2024. He will serve a minimum term of 11 years and five months for attacking eight women in the space of four days in London last summer, the force said.
'Still work to do'
I was among the journalists invited to a monthly briefing at New Scotland Yard, where officers with different specialisms came together to discuss suspects flagged under the scheme, and how to tackle them.The scheme works by using existing police data from victim reports of crime alongside the Cambridge Crime Harm Index - a tool which helps police measure the seriousness of harm to victims.Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ben Russell said each suspect's risk was calculated by looking at what sentence they would expect to be given for each allegation, if they were convicted as a first time offender, and then adding up the total. The suspects are then ranked in priority order and updated each month.This approach used by officers has been dubbed as "Achilles' heel" tactics, Det Ch Supt Angela Craggs said, as it involved considering allegations related to other crimes. "We're thinking about drug dealing, we might be thinking about, you know, robbery offences. Any other offences that this perpetrator is linked to in order to take them off the streets," she explained. In the meeting, officers also discussed how best to support victims, some of whom may be manipulated or threatened, in order to protect them and to encourage them to support a prosecution.
The Met's update on how many offenders are being convicted under the V100 programme comes exactly two years on from the publication of the damning review by Baroness Casey, which found the Met was institutionally misogynist and called for more to be done to protect women and girls. The report highlighted cases of victim blaming, evidence from rape investigations being lost in broken down fridges, and said that specialist public protection teams, who tackle abuse against women and children, had been "deprioritised". The Met says it's boosted those teams with an extra 565 officers and staff and invested in training for frontline officers.
However, new figures from the Met Police, presented to the London Assembly, showed reported sexual offences increased by 7.4% in the 12 months up to the end of January 2025, compared with the previous 12 months.Last year, the Met said 34,000 suspects were reported for more than one crime against women and girls. "It is a significant number," Russell agreed, saying the whole justice system needed to do more. "But what we are realising through our work is that the number of men who are committing violence of this significance and this seriousness is relatively small. "So by focusing on the most serious harmful offenders, we think we can have a disproportionate impact on keeping people safe."
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said: "Every woman has a fundamental right to feel safe. One hundred offenders convicted by the Met Police means 100 more dangerous men off our streets - a powerful achievement for the Met's V100 initiative."Delivering a consistent national approach in the use of these data-driven tools to identify and pursue the most dangerous perpetrators is a core part of our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. We are cracking on alongside our policing partners to achieve this."
The Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan said there was more work to do."I remain committed to doing everything I can to support the Met's action, investing in vital services that support victims and important intervention work that stops perpetrators from reoffending," he said.