Hundreds of suspects police are still hunting months after violent crimes were committed

Hundreds of suspects in violent crimes in the West Midlands and Warwickshire, including murder, remain at large months after police had enough evidence to arrest them. West Midlands Police have failed to arrest a total of 252 suspects for recent and historic violent crimes.

This includes 152 that occurred more than nine months ago. One of these is a murder from more than 20 years ago, and eight are for attacks that took place more than 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, Warwickshire Police have failed to arrest 31 suspects for violent crimes, including 24 since more than nine months ago. That’s what the figures published by the police show thanks to Freedom of Information requests from the Mirror.

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West Midlands and Warwickshire Police are two of 24 police forces in the country that respond to FOI requests. The figures show forces have failed to arrest a total of 5,306 suspects for recent and historical violent crimes, some dating back as much as 20 years.

Just over 3,000 warrants from the 24 police forces that gave us figures have been outstanding for more than nine months. Some of the country’s biggest forces, such as Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire Police, did not respond to the FOI request, so the national figure will be even higher.

The Conservatives were accused of losing “all control of law and order”. Political parties say we need more police, including bobbies.
June 12 marks the first anniversary of the fatal stabbing of Valdo Calocane in Nottingham.

A warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to appear in court in 2022 over an alleged assault on a police officer. He was never arrested on that warrant and nine months later went on a rampage in the town, killing 65-year-old Ian Coates and 19-year-old friends Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar.

This year Calocane, 32, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The Home Office declined to comment on individual cases but said handling outstanding warrants was an operational matter for the police. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “After 14 years of the Tories, criminals are getting away. Arrests have halved since 2010, and dangerous predators have been left on the streets.

“The Conservative Party has lost all control of law and order. Time to turn the page on the Tory crime mayhem. One of Labour’s core missions is to make our streets safe again. The next Labor government will get neighborhood policing back on track and tackle the shortage of detectives with a new fast-track recruitment scheme.”

Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “The public will be outraged that thousands of suspected violent criminals are on the run while the Tories leave frontline police overworked and under-resourced. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a return to proper community policing, where officers are visible and have time to focus on preventing and solving crime.” The Conservatives did not respond to a request for comment.

The Tories are promising to recruit 8,000 more officers over the next three years, on top of the 20,000 recruited in 2019. But that came after 20,000 officers left the service between 2010 and 2019 during Tory funding cuts. The Metropolitan Police, Britain’s largest force, had the most arrest warrants outstanding for at least nine months.

He told us he has 1,456 violent crime warrants over nine months old, including 137 for murder. The Met said: “London is a global city with a population of almost nine million people, with people constantly traveling in and out of the capital, this presents a huge challenge for policing to trace individuals.

“The arrest of these wanted criminals is a priority for the Met. We are working with partners locally, nationally and internationally, using all available tactics, to bring them to justice.”

The forces with the next highest number of warrants per head of nine months or longer for violent crime include Cambridgeshire Police with 106 and Police Scotland with 590.

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