Is London within the grip of against the law wave? It’s not so easy

[ad_1] London is now not a secure place to reside, no less than within the eyes of a few of its richest residents – and the forty seventh president of the USA.

“I feel he’s accomplished a horrible job,” Donald Trump stated throughout his state go to to the UK final month, in his newest broadside at London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. “Crime in London is thru the roof.”

Trump’s view is more and more accepted knowledge in rightwing circles and is gaining traction extra broadly. Crime is even being blamed – together with rising taxes – for an obvious exodus of the super-rich from the UK.

A main property agent remembers a consumer’s Rolex being stolen off his wrist the primary evening he moved into Kensington, the west London neighbourhood that is without doubt one of the metropolis’s most prosperous.

Advisers to the super-rich describe a metropolis the place “spotters” linger outdoors unique eating places sizing up doable targets, whereas demand for personal bodyguards grows.

It's a view that Reform UK’s chief, Nigel Farage, usually repeats, warning one journalist: “I dare you to stroll via the West Finish of London after 9 o’clock of a night carrying jewelry. You wouldn’t do it. that I’m proper. You wouldn’t do it.”

A collection of high-profile crimes has helped reinforce that view. The ex-Components One driver Jenson Button and his spouse, Brittny, had a suitcase containing £250,000 price of valuables snatched inside moments of their arrival at King’s Cross St Pancras. In January, the socialite Shafira Huang’s mansion in Primrose Hill, north London, was burgled, with thieves taking greater than £10m price of bespoke jewelry.

In November, the house owners of the Sellier luxurious items retailer in Knightsbridge shared footage of masked males ransacking their premises, later commenting: “London has simply become one thing loopy.”

However is crime within the capital actually “via the roof”? Whereas statistics present crime is falling throughout England and Wales, with violent crime dropping dramatically over the previous twenty years, crime in London is up. Recorded crime has elevated by 31% up to now decade within the space that the Metropolitan police covers, with violent crime up by 40%.

Cell phone theft stays a menace in London, with one ebike-riding thief jailed final 12 months for stealing 24 telephones in an hour. However there are indicators that the tide is beginning to flip within the capital, with violent crime falling by 6% within the 12 months to the top of March, in accordance with the Met police. Luxurious watch theft, as soon as a stain on London’s elite neighbourhoods of Mayfair and Knightsbridge, has massively diminished up to now two years. So why does notion not match actuality?

Is violent crime falling? Many crimes go unreported to the police, so the Crime Survey for England and Wales asks tens of 1000's of households straight yearly whether or not they have been the sufferer of against the law. The findings counsel crime has fallen dramatically over the previous 20 years.

Crime survey chart Final 12 months London reported the bottom variety of homicides of under-25s for greater than twenty years. Total, murders are at a five-year low, and the speed is way decrease than in different worldwide cities similar to New York, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Madrid, in accordance with evaluation by Khan’s workplace.

However knife crime has been rising in London: whereas the variety of recorded knife crimes fell from 2012 within the run-up to 2016, it then began to rise once more, hitting a peak of 15,600 incidents in 2019. There was a pointy drop in the course of the pandemic, but it surely has since been closing in on its earlier peak, standing at 15,000 in 2023-24. Newer statistics present knife crime in London dropping by 19% within the three months to June, in contrast with a 12 months earlier.

Different severe offences are dropping: within the 12 months ending in March, there was a 6% discount in violent crime total, in accordance with the Met police. And in a metropolis that's residence to about 9 million individuals, Londoners are much less possible (26.4 offences per 1,000 individuals) to be a sufferer of violent crime than individuals throughout the remainder of England and Wales (31.9 offences per 1,000 individuals), in accordance with figures from the mayor’s workplace.

So why is it that the narrative of a lawless capital is so prevalent? A YouGov survey in September confirmed 51% of adults thought violent crime in London was growing, in opposition to simply 7% who thought it was falling.

The “damaged home windows” concept partly explains why: that is the criminology principle that seen indicators of minor crime and delinquent behaviour create an setting that encourages additional crime, and normalises dysfunction as part of public life.

A CCTV digital camera captures the second when thieves on a moped snatch a telephone in London. {Photograph}: Metropolitan police/PA Take telephone theft, for instance. After dropping in the course of the pandemic, telephone theft has been steadily rising since 2020, when there have been 55,820 incidents reported to the Met. The determine has greater than doubled, standing at 117,211 final 12 months.

These snatch thefts could cause large misery and monetary affect to victims, given the huge quantity of non-public information saved on telephones and cellular banking apps. They're additionally more durable to police, with criminals utilizing ebikes and mopeds to make speedy getaways, and hyperlinks to organised gangs which have subtle and established provide chains to promote telephones overseas.

It signifies that in areas similar to Knightsbridge, which was hit notably exhausting by watch thefts in 2022, it gave residents a broader sense of lawlessness within the UK.

However a few of these numbers counsel police are beginning to get a grip. Studies of telephone theft fell by 28% to 213 within the Metropolis of London, which has its personal police drive, within the first 4 months of 2025, in contrast with the identical interval within the 12 months prior.

Exterior the capital’s monetary district, telephone theft continues to be rising, however luxurious watch, purse and jewelry theft are all down in London, in accordance with figures obtained from the Met police beneath a freedom of knowledge request.

There have been 783 counts of stolen watches that had been price no less than £3,000 in 2024, in contrast with 2,054 the 12 months prior, in accordance with the Met’s information. Counts of stolen purses price no less than £1,000 fell from 2,324 in 2023 to 721 final 12 months. Counts of stolen jewelry, excluding watches, price no less than £1,000 fell from 4,977 to 1,863.

The sharp drop coincides with an enormous crackdown by the Met, with plainclothes officers baiting thieves in crime hotspots after darkish. This summer time three males had been jailed after a Met police investigation right into a collection of high-value watch robberies in central London. Detectives used CCTV to establish a bunch of violent repeat offenders, who carried out two robberies in Mayfair on consecutive days.

Theft of watches graphic Regardless of the massive drop, the notion of hazard nonetheless stays amongst most of the super-rich, particularly in the case of their watches. A retailer supervisor in Mayfair stated that whereas he made his residing by promoting luxurious watches, he now advised his purchasers to not put on them on the road.

Luxurious items thefts graphic Reputations: hard-won, simply misplaced The capital’s Berkeley Sq., which is bordered by A-list hotspots similar to Horny Fish restaurant and Annabel’s members membership, has grow to be a hotspot for late-night watch crime, in accordance with the Watch Register, which works and shares information with the police.

The timepieces, that are simpler to move than medication or money, have now grow to be an “underworld foreign money”, the corporate stated. About 20% of watches that it finds are in a unique nation from the place they had been stolen.

“Luxurious watches have grow to be a most popular type of prison foreign money attributable to their excessive portability throughout borders, which makes them simpler to maneuver than medication or money,” stated Julian Radcliffe, founding father of the Watch Register. “They're small, transportable, innocuous gadgets that are solely identifiable by serial quantity.”

Not carrying a luxurious watch outdoors is now the usual recommendation, says Matthew Beer, a director on the safety agency King Security and Safety. “There was a longstanding subject round opportunistic road crime,” he stated. “That slowed slightly bit with the Met’s response with extra tactical interventions however we're nonetheless seeing a whole lot of electrical bike-enabled telephone theft and watch theft with an unpredictable stage of violence related to that.”

It signifies that for ultra-high web price purchasers, there's a larger urge for food for “shut safety” providers – in different phrases, bodyguards.

“Those that would have had safety up to now have a larger urge for food for extra safety,” Beer stated. “So the place we as soon as had a safety driver and one shut safety officer, we are actually pushing that out so members of the family additionally obtain safety.”

Crimes graphic The numbers counsel demand for safety is rising: in 2024, there have been 4,650 functions for an in depth safety licence from the Safety Trade Authority, a 33% rise in contrast with the 12 months earlier than. Final 12 months the regulator awarded 187,113 {qualifications} throughout the trade, a rise of 5%, which incorporates providers such because the transport of money and valuables, door supervision and safety guarding.

“Extra established travellers, maybe somebody who comes from an setting that's traditionally extra harmful, they might nonetheless view London as a comparatively secure place to be,” Beer added.

“Youthful purchasers who're extra engaged on social media; their understanding of it's maybe slightly clearer. You don’t have to be ultra-high web price particular person to be a goal: [you are] in case you have a fairly good watch or carrying a designer purse.”

Steven Helliwell, of the safety consultants Aldermans, stated: “I feel the police are beneath pressure as [political] protests proceed; that's a whole lot of distraction. However it's throughout occasions of financial stress that's when persons are motivated to show to crime.”

Even so, it has not been sufficient to drive off the super-rich, he stated. “A number of the excessive web price purchasers we've bought like soccer stars, they may simply strengthen the preventions that they've. They nonetheless need to reside in London as a result of it's a nice metropolis.”

A spokesperson for the Met police stated: “Tackling violent crime in all of its types is without doubt one of the Met’s priorities and we've diminished the variety of private robberies throughout London by 12% since April.

“Uniform and plainclothed officers proactively patrol theft hotspots to establish offences happening, however extra importantly to assist forestall and deter offenders from committing them within the first place.”