West Midlands Police has worst record in country for solving burglaries

In 2019 the force closed 22,070 cases without pinpointing a suspect – 89 per cent of the total number recorded – while just 1,166 burglary cases resulted in someone being charged.

The Home Office figures show that Staffordshire Police failed to find a suspect in just over three-quarters (76 per cent) of 5,005 burglaries.

Meanwhile West Mercia Police identified no suspect in 72 per cent of 5,726 residential and commercial burglaries.

The figures were released following a Freedom of Information request by the Lib Dems, which showed that forces across England and Wales abandoned investigations into more than 300,000 burglaries last year, with a third of forces closing at least 80 per cent of cases before they were solved.

West Midlands Police says it has no officers dedicated to dealing specifically with burglaries.

The region's Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson, said that burglary offences had fallen in the latest crime statistics, and that with "the right level of resourcing" the force could do more to tackle the crime.

He added: "We know that around a half of all burglary is committed by those with a drug addiction trying to pay for their habit.

"It is vital that the right support services are available to support these people and get them off the drugs and into recovery and employment.

Devastating

"I’ll continue to follow the performance of West Midlands Police closely and I hope that we continue to see burglaries fall across our region."

Lib Dem leadership candidate, Layla Moran MP, said: "Having your home burgled can be one of the most devastating and impactful crimes people experience; and its effects can last a lifetime.

"It is utterly horrific that in the West Midlands so many criminals seem to getting away with it.

"These statistics will be as soul-destroying to the police officers as they are worrying to the public.

"What the service so desperately needs is a long-term funding deal to enable all forces to return to a position where they are properly resourced to meet the demands they face."

Police forces in England and Wales wrote off around 2.2 million unsolved crimes last year.

They included 68,848 stalking and harassment cases, 2,632 drug trafficking cases and 4,637 weapon possession offences where no suspect was identified before the case was closed.

In the West Midlands, no suspect was found in more than a fifth of all rapes.

Screening out crimes – in which a police force marks a case as requiring "no further action" – has increased six-fold over the last decade, from 361,180 in 2010.

The Home Office figures show that nationally more than half of all criminal damage and arson cases end up resolved in this way. Where something was stolen from a vehicle, police failed to identify a suspect in 93 per cent of cases.