Crime rises 13 per cent in Staffordshire with domestic abuse up almost 40 per cent

More than 88,000 crimes were recorded in the Staffordshire Police force area between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023 according to a report presented to a performance meeting on Wednesday – up from just over 78,000 between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019.

As well as a 38 per cent rise in domestic abuse cases there was also a 19 per cent increase in knife crime. But the same period also saw a 37 per cent drop in antisocial behaviour, which was described by Staffordshire’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Ben Adams as “very positive news”.

He added however: “That isn’t necessarily the experience of everyone around the county and city; particularly the perception of nuisance behaviour in public spaces.” And he said that the overall report was a “difficult picture”.

Chief Constable Chris Noble responded: “This compares to the baseline that existed before Covid. It is pretty much tracking the national picture in terms of seeing increases in crime.

“Some of this is Staffordshire being much sharper and more effective in how we record crime in the first place. I welcome the Government initiative to make crime recording more proportionate and bring it back to a common sense approach.

“That said, set against a longer period of time we’re still seeing significant reductions from 2010 levels. Percentage-wise we’re still a relatively safe county, but one we’re watching really closely.

“There are some crimes we know are massively under-reported that we would want to see reporting in. So whenever we’re looking at things like sexual offences and domestic abuse, what we’re doing is surfacing demand, which maybe has been hidden for decades in terms of people hopefully now having the confidence to come forward and tell their story.

“The challenge for policing is each one of those is incredibly complex. Very often it will be difficult to prove, there will be challenges around the amount of evidence we have to seize and disclose and court cases can be significantly challenging and protracted.

“But those are our most vulnerable victims. So in those areas we are not just seeing an increase percentage-wise, we’re seeing a lot more people who need our best investigators and our best levels of care to support them in terms of what they’re coming forwards from.”

Since July 2019 the force has recruited hundreds of extra officers. The report said: “In March 2023 the force reached its Police Uplift Programme target.

“Since July 2019, we have recruited more than 800 officers which has seen our workforce grow from 1,648 officers to 1,973 – 28 more than the target set by the Home Office. Investment from the police precept and efficiency -based budgeting will allow us to recruit an additional 60 officers by March 2024.”

Mr Adams said: “Thank goodness we have got the (extra officers) because we’re facing additional pressures everywhere.”