Sunday 3 July 2022 10:09 PM Police let 22,000 suspects roam after they fail to attend court trends now
More than 22,000 crime suspects are on the loose after failing to appear in court, the Daily Mail can reveal today.
Fugitives accused of assault, rape and even murder remain at large, sometimes decades after their alleged offences.
Many are thought to be at their given addresses but police are too stretched to arrest them. The Mail investigation even managed to locate two suspects at their own homes.
According to a former minister our findings ‘lay bare how shambolic our justice system has become’.
Legal experts said the punishments for failing to attend court were too light to act as a deterrent.
Freedom of information requests to 35 of the 43 forces in England and Wales showed there were 22,345 failure to appear warrants for offences including homicide, rape and serious assault.
A Mail investigation even managed to locate two suspects at their own homes
Some date back as far as 1980 and more than 2,000 relate to violent crimes.
Among the outstanding warrants was one for a defendant accused of assaulting four police officers and destroying a police car in Slough, Berkshire. However a Mail reporter found him in plain sight at his home in west London. The freedom of information data shows that more than 406 alleged sexual offenders are on the loose along with at least 11 murder suspects.
Police forces said the alleged killers were not bailed after being charged with murder. Instead they fled after being arrested over a lesser offence that was later upgraded.
Ministry of Justice data from the ten years before the pandemic show that between 70,000 and 77,000 failure to appear warrants are issued each year.
Former home affairs minister David Mellor said: ‘It is really not acceptable for people to evade punishment by a court by the simple expedient of not turning up.
‘You would expect in a properly run criminal justice system that the failure to turn up would be immediately followed up by police and the defendant would face the immediate loss of liberty before the case was properly dealt with. The fact that little or nothing seems to be happening is a sure sign of the shambles which our once much vaunted criminal justice system has descended into.’
Scotland Yard had 3,961 outstanding warrants as of May, including 920 for violent crimes, possessing offensive weapons or making threats to kill. West Midlands Police had 1,791 and Greater Manchester Police 1,386, including 75 for sexual offences and two for suspected murderers.
Scotland Yard had 3,961 outstanding warrants as of May, including 920 for violent crimes
A spokesman from the National Police Chiefs’ Council said forces worked hard to locate those who failed to appear in court and public appeals were often used for higher risk suspects. And they cautioned that the figures represented a snap shot of a total that changes every day as warrants are acted on.
A senior police source said officers were shown photographs of wanted suspects but did not have the resources to carry out regular house visits.
Sentencing guidelines for failing to surrender range between a small fine and up to six weeks in prison.
Retired senior police officer Norman Brennan, who served in London for 31 years, said that 20 years ago officers would immediately go to the address of any suspect who failed to appear in court but forces were now understaffed.
‘These offenders know how badly police are stretched so they treat their victims
