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1 May, 2014

900,000 crimes, including rape, not pursued by UK police in 2013

Nearly a million criminal offences including rape have gone unrecorded by police in a single year, according to a damning report that could see the 20-year decline in recorded crime reversed when accurate statistics are calculated.

Inspectors said they suspected “discreditable and unethical” behaviour by some officers and said they had discovered 14 reported rapes that were wrongly categorised in a study of 13 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.

They included the case of a 13-year-old boy with autism who complained of an attack by a 15-year-old friend but the case was written off as “sexual experimentation” because of the negative effect it might have on the victim.

Read the rest: 900,000 crimes, including rape, not pursued by police in 2013 – Crime – UK – The Independent.