The Metropolitan Police are hailing new crime statistics which they say mark a 'spectacular success' in the fight against crime. Crime levels in Ealing Borough fell by 5.5% over the last year well above the London wide fall of 1.8%. In total there were 2243 less victims of crime on Ealing borough.

Burglaries in the borough were also down helping bring figures for this crime to a 29 year low. However, the figures show an increase gun crime and other crimes against the person a trend which was not mirrored elsewhere in the capital.

Borough Commander Martin Bridger described the results as 'tremendous' saying, "We achieved excellent reductions on our priority crime whereby Burglaries are down by 4 per cent, Autocrime is down 7 per cent and street crime fell by 19.5 per cent.."

He said the figures have contributed to efforts to transferring the fear of crime from the victim to the offender. However despite the fall in crime rates fear of crime continues to rise according to surveys. Martin Bridger said his aim was to reduce fear of crime in the near future. The introduction of Safer Neighbourhoods and more Anit-Social Behaviour Orders were key tools in this quest.

I have no doubt that the support we receive from our partners and members of the public will continue to benefit everyone and help us achieve our mission of making Ealing Borough a safer place to live, work and pass through.

Key Successes in Ealing

• Street Crime is down - driven by the Safer Streets campaigns run in the last year
• Burglary is down through the crime prevention advice and activities of our Safer Homes initiative
• Vehicle crime is down through our Safer Cars initiative, which included schemes such as 'Park Smart'
• All results have been achieved by implementing a performance culture with staff of all levels
• Improvements in partnership working have also contributed to the success of Ealing Borough

Senior police officers were claiming that they have turned the tide against crime in London. 'Put this all together and it adds up to the most successful period in many years,' said Deputy Commissioner Ian Blair. 'Overall crime for the last year has been reduced by 1.8% which translates into 20,000 fewer offences and the trends for this year are also looking very positive. It can be no co-incidence that the MPS are achieving these historic results in the year that London has had a significant increase in the number of police officers - now up to more than 30,200 and with the added strength of more than 1400 Police Community Support Officers.

The results were praised by Labour candidate for the London Assembly, Seema Malhotra. Seema said "The success reflected in these figures is the direct result of deliberately tough and testing targets set by the MPA, the big increase in police numbers, effective community and borough-based partnerships, and the unstinting effort put in by police officers".

"I'm confident that we'll see greater improvements across the board as dedicated police teams are introduced under the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative."

Across London, burglary is down 7.1 per cent to a 29 year low, auto-crime down 7.1 per cent and there has been a 4.2 per cent reduction in street crime offences.

Seema Malhotra continued "There are more police in London than ever before thanks to the work of Ken Livingstone and the London Assembly. These figures show that our investment in the Metropolitan Police is paying dividends."

	Apr 2003 - Mar 2004		Apr 2002 - Mar 2003
	Ealing	MPS Total	Ealing	MPS Total
Total Crimes	37,927	1,060,930	40,147	1,080,741
Homicide	6	211	9	195
Robbery	1,473	40,640	1,823	42,496
Street Crime	2,060	56,455	2,558	58,929
Burglary (Total)	4,375	105,361	4,543	113,427
Burglary Residential	3,005	67,996	2,912	72,237
Burglary Non-Residential	1,370	37,365	1,631	41,190
Gun Crime	151	3,576	127	3,862
Vehicle Crime	10,170	225,610	10,902	242,843
Sexual Offences	355	10,200	359	10,427
Violence Against the Person (Total)	7,150	186,188	7,143	178,802
Grievous Bodily Harm	218	4,908	221	4,935
Actual Bodily Harm	1,583	38,219	1,568	37,342
Common Assault	3,581	88,093	3,616	86,728
Possession of an Offensive Weapon	223	8,758	272	8,340
Harassment	1,080	33,591	1,071	30,940
Other Violence	459	12,415	386	10,328

May 7, 2004