CRIMINALS are getting away with it far more often than not – with only a fifth of reported crimes in the borough solved over the past 13 years.
Figures released to the Advertiser suggest criminals in Croydon have a higher than 80 per cent chance of evading capture, with police solving just 18 per cent of recorded crimes overall in Croydon since 2001.
Things are getting better, however, for most types of crimes, according to the 'sanction-detection' figures - police jargon for when a person has been charged, cautioned or otherwise punished for an offence.
The figures were released by the Met to the Advertiser under a Freedom of Information request.
The average clean-up rate has climbed from about 12 per cent in 2001 to 23.8 per cent in 2013, although it is much lower for some further-flung wards and for some types of crime.
Simon Hoar, the council's cabinet member for community safety, said: "A lot of these crimes will be the sort of low-level stuff that is very difficult to solve. The key for me is they catch the robbers, the burglars and the violent people, and these figures are going in the right way."
Rates for catching robbers and violent thugs have steadily increased, although only 305 of 1,728 robbery offences were solved last year.
Croydon's clean-up rate compares to an overall London-wide rate of about 14 per cent and a national rate of about 28 per cent. A sharp drop in recorded fraud and forgeries boosted last year's borough average.
Criminals seemed to have the easiest pickings in Coulsdon East, West and Kenley, where less than one sixth (about 14 per cent) of crimes were solved last year – but also among the least crime reported.
A spokesman for the Met in Croydon said no-one was available to discuss the figures before the Advertiser went to press, and could not provide any statement on the "complex" issue, despite more than 48 hours' notice.
The office has, however, set up a meeting for Friday between the Advertiser and a Croydon superintendent to discuss the figures, which we will report next week.
The figures show the total number of recorded crimes falling over the past 13 years alongside an increase in the sanction-detection rates.
The number of notifiable offences across Croydon has fallen from 36,870 in 2001 to 28,393 in 2013.
But the rate of solving sexual offences is below the average for all crimes in the borough, and has bucked the overall trend by dropping slightly in the past 12 years.
Less than a fifth of about 1,000 reported sexual offences were solved over the past two years.
Thieves had the highest chance of getting away with it over the same time period, with less than ten per cent of 22,374 offences being 'solved.'
But police were far more successful with drugs offences, cracking 1,938 of 2,109 (91.9 per cent) last year, as in previous years.
Emma Wright, from national charity Victim Support, said the improved overall rate was positive, but faith in police statistics nationally had been shaken by a recent watchdog report questioning their reliability.
Sex cases rate drop SEXUAL offences remain among the more difficult cases for police to crack, with the clean-up rate dropping slightly over the past 12 years, compared to a general increase across all offences. Last year 18.2 per cent of sexual offences ended in someone being caught, compared to 22.1 per cent in 2001. There were 486 offences reported last year, compared to 400 in 2001, the figures show. Yvonne Traynor, CEO of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre, in Croydon, said the increase in reported offences suggested more victims felt willing to come forward. But she stressed much more needed to be done to improve the rate at which offenders were brought to justice, which often sparked a vicious cycle deterring victims from pursuing a case. She said: "A huge number of people don't feel confident enough in the criminal prosecution system to come forward, so that needs to be looked at "I don't think it is in the police – I think it is in the whole criminal justice system. It is still outdated when it comes to sexual offences." She added she wanted the burden of proof for sexual offence convictions to be the balance of probabilities (rather than the beyond reasonable doubt it is now, as for all criminal cases). "I would like the criminal prosecution system to be overhauled for sexual offences," she added. Last year Fairfield was the ward with the most sexual offences recorded – 62 – of which five were solved. Only one of Addiscombe's 18 offences resulted in someone being punished, and none of the five recorded in Selsdon and Ballards. CASE STUDY: Theft victim left frustrated COULSDON resident Peter Morgan was among the victims of the theft in the area to find the crime was never solved. Mr Morgan, pictured right, said his VW Polo was stolen from outside his house last year – and found burned out not far away. He said: "I reported it to police and asked they if they would check the ANPR camera, but they refused. "They said they had other things to do with their time. "Someone had driven the car from here to Godstone. He must have been seen. I was extremely frustrated. "The fire brigade came to deal with the burning vehicle. Police then said it was recovered – as far as they were concerned it was no longer stolen. "I think there is a big issue with the democratic accountability of the way police operate."