Not a single car thief was caught in more than 100 neighbourhoods in England and Wales last year, shock figures have revealed.
The staggering data brings shame on the police for failing to solve a single crime of car theft in a shocking example of lawless Britain.
In a further 558 neighbourhoods, where there was one vehicle crime every week, less than two per cent solved with a suspect caught or charged.
Shockingly, officers shut down some cases in less than 24 hours of them being opened, while about 85 percent of around 336,000 vehicle crimes were closed without the thief being identified.
The data, published in The Observer, showed Blyth in Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire, had the highest rate of offences which were closed without prosecution in the year to September 2023.
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Not a single car thief was caught in more than 100 neighbourhoods in England and Wales last year, shock figures have revealed
In a further 558 neighbourhoods where there was one vehicle crime every week less than two per cent solved, with a suspect caught or charged (stock photo)
The Courtfield ward in the swanky London borough of Kensington and Chelsea was second with 26 vehicle crimes for every 1,000 people.
The neighbourhood with the highest vehicle crime was in The West End in London with 1,171 recorded vehicle crimes, of which police failed to get a prosecution in 98 per cent of cases.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed there was an 8 per cent increase in vehicle theft in the year ending September 2023, compared to the previous 12 months.
The rise is largely being blamed on crooks shifting to keyless car thefts, with it now making up about half of all stolen vehicle claims.
Mike Briggs, president of the UK branch of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators, said police did not have the resources to tackle the current level of vehicle crime.
He said: ‘The thieves now have the technology to beat the security systems and the police are on the back foot.’
Under EU laws a vehicle’s software systems are ‘readily accessible’ which was a cause for concern, he said.
Mr Briggs said police need better training to detect thieves’ sophisticated technology as he added: ‘It is like building a fortress and giving away the front door key.’
Criminals usually go in pairs to steal keyless cars. One holds a transmitter and stands next to the vehicle while the other stands close to the house holding an amplifier
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We expect police to take vehicle crime seriously and investigate thoroughly,’ adding that progress had been made in tackling vehicle-related theft. ‘We have recently introduced provisions in the criminal justice bill to ban electronic devices used in vehicle theft,’ he added.
Last month, London Mayor Sadiq Khan demanded action from leading car manufacturers over a spike in vehicle thefts in the capital.
In a letter to car company bosses, Mr Khan urged them to fix design flaws that make it ‘too easy’ for criminals to exploit security gaps in modern cars.
The mayor warned it was ‘now arguably easier to steal a car than a few years ago’ due to keyless technology and criminals’ use of ever-more sophisticated theft devices.
He also bemoaned how this was having a knock-on effect on car insurance premiums for Londoners, with higher costs now ‘unaffordable for many’.
Mr Khan has written to the UK bosses of Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz.
In his letter to car manufacturers, Mr Khan said this ‘concerning national trend is manifesting in London’ where there has been 7.7 per cent increase in vehicle theft over the same period.
He also pointed to Metropolitan Police figures that showed, of the approximately 33,000 cars stolen over the last year, 60 to 65 per cent were keyless car thefts.
MailOnline analysis revealed last month that Range Rovers are some of the most stolen cars in the UK with around one in every 100 targeted by thieves last year.
DVLA data shows that three of the top five cars in the list are the Velar, Sport and standard Range Rover models, with the brand’s Evoque placing sixth and the Land Rover Discovery in seventh.
The most stolen popular car model last year – as a proportion of the number licenced to go on the road against the number of thefts – was the Lexus RX with more than 1 in 50 being taken, according to data obtained by car leasing comparison site LeaseLoco and analysed by MailOnline.
The second most targeted car was the Range Rover Velar, with 560 out of 38,286 – 1 in 68 – being stolen. When looking all four models of Range Rover together around 1 in 100 were stolen last year – 4,451 out of 456,139 on the streets.
It comes after Range Rover and Land Rover owners have found the cars to be effectively uninsurable, being unable to get quotes from the Jaguar Land Rover’s own insurance firm and being offered quotes of £14,000 a year from others.
Insurers are treating the vehicles with caution due to the high levels of theft.
Have YOU had your car stolen? Email [email protected]
