Police forces have committed to follow all “reasonable lines of enquiry” in an effort to improve investigations and drive down crime rates.
First find your Police Officer ! – Owl
Sophie Wingate www.independent.co.uk
The standards setting body published guidance for officers in England and Wales to consider all potential evidence – such as footage from CCTV, doorbells and dashcams, as well as phone tracking – if it could lead to a suspect or stolen property.
The public will therefore know what they can expect from police when they report a crime such as burglary or theft, according to the College of Policing.
It said this will make the service more consistent across regions and solve more crimes.
While the pledge applies to all crimes, home secretarySuella Braverman implored officers to act on leads for phone or car theft, shoplifting and criminal damage.
She said it was “unacceptable” such crimes have been treated as “less important”.
The commitment, agreed by the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing, comes as part of a “crime week” of policy announcements planned by the government.
But Labour branded it a “staggering admission of 13 years of Tory failure on policing and crime”.
Ms Braverman said: “The police have made progress in preventing crime across the country with neighbourhood offences like burglary, robbery and vehicle theft down by 51 per cent since 2010.
“Despite this success, since I became home secretary I’ve heard too many accounts from victims where police simply haven’t acted on helpful leads because crimes such as phone and car thefts are seen as less important – that’s unacceptable. It has damaged people’s confidence in policing.
“Criminals must have no place to hide. The police’s commitment today is a huge step forward towards delivering the victim-focused, common-sense policing the public deserve.”
The move comes on top of a previous commitment for forces to attend every home burglary in a new set of standards announced last year.
Ms Braverman has also asked for plans from police chiefs on how they intend to improve visibility in communities.
Policing minister Chris Philp said “there is no such thing as a minor crime” and all “merit proper investigation where there are leads to follow”.
“There are now record numbers of police officers and record funding that has gone into policing, including for more patrols in hotspot areas of crime, and to make neighbourhoods more secure with better street lighting and CCTV. Along with camera images, combined with facial recognition, this will mean many more offenders can be brought to justice.”
Head of the College of Policing, chief constable Andy Marsh, said: “It is critically important the public know that when a crime has happened the police will consider all reasonable lines of enquiry and, where appropriate, arrest the person responsible.”
He said the new guidance will support time-pressured officers “to make effective decisions on what is a reasonable line of enquiry”.
“It means all forces are working to the same standard as we come down hard on criminals and deliver what the public want from their police service.”
He added: “Our focus will be on where there is information we can act on.”
National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for investigations, chief constable Scott Chilton, said: “Crime has changed and got more complex in recent years, but we have also seen big changes in technology, such as video doorbells and dashcams, that can greatly assist an investigation.
“It is important to remember that each and every case is different and has different complexities, however, officers will use these new technologies when appropriate to gather evidence to build a case for prosecution. There are opportunities to identify offenders that we never had before, and that is something to be very positive about.”
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “This is a staggering admission of 13 years of Tory failure on policing and crime.
“Pursuing reasonable leads like CCTV is what the police should be doing, but – because of abysmal Tory management – over 90 per cent of crimes go unsolved, the proportion of crimes prosecuted has dropped by more than two-thirds and more criminals are getting off.
“Instead of supporting our brave officers to catch criminals, the Conservative government have cut neighbourhood policing by nearly 10,000, left a 7,000 shortage of detectives, and allowed the growth of appalling delays between the police, CPS and courts.
“The fact that the Tories are boasting about asking the police to do the basic minimum that victims of crime should rightly expect, whilst failing to tackle the underlying problems they have caused shows how badly they have failed over the last 13 years.
“The Tories are weak on crime and the causes of crime. Labour will put 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs back on our streets, increase detective recruitment and ensure more crimes are charged to keep our streets safe.”
East Devon Watch 
The Police to investigate crime. Who would have thought!!
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I never had any involvement with the police when I lived in Devon, but when I lived in High Wycombe the Thames Valley Police were quite literally incompetent – they had literally no idea about collecting evidence or building a case. And that was before the Conservative Government first got rid of tens of thousands of highly experienced officers and then when things went belly-up later replaced them with trainees.
However, whilst the headline might state “Police forces have committed to follow all ‘reasonable lines of enquiry’ in an effort to improve investigations and drive down crime rates”, as far as I can see from the rest of this article this is a PROPAGANDA LIE from the right-wing Tory-supporting so-called Independent. According to this article, this is an announcement by the Tory Government of a “commitment, agreed by the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing”. There is literally NOTHING in this article which states that individual police forces have “committed to follow all ‘reasonable lines of enquiry’.
BUT… even if each police force did make this commitment, it is up to that force to define what is a ‘reasonable line of enquiry’, so they set their own standards presumably at a level that they will be able to meet.
In the end, the ability to meet this “commitment” will depend on two factors: 1) Having the experienced officers with the skills to follow lines of enquiry – and the skill base was decimated by Tory cuts and will take a decade or more to rebuild; and 2) Even if every officer had the skills, you still need to have sufficient officers to undertake all these enquiries and (regardless of skills) police numbers are still tens of thousands of officers down from pre-cut levels.
So, sorry to disappoint – but this is simply more hype from a zombie Home Secretary that is part of a zombie government.
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P.S. I note that the Guardian article is more factual in its reporting with a headline “Police in England and Wales told to follow all ‘reasonable lines of inquiry’” – in other words the Guardian factually states that this is a government directive (i.e. the Tory government is telling them to do it regardless of the reality of financing, skills or resources) whilst the right-wing Independent falsely claims that police forces have “committed” to doing it (when we know they don’t have the finances, skills or resources).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/28/police-in-england-and-wales-told-to-follow-all-reasonable-lines-of-inquiry
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If you go and read the press release from the College of Policing ( https://collegeofpolicing-newsroom.prgloo.com/news/police-pledge-better-investigations-to-drive-down-crime-rates ) you can see that as far as they are concerned this announcement is SIMPLY IMPROVED DOCUMENTATION. According to this press release…
1. “Police have a duty to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry in every investigation.” Note that this is clearly stated as an existing duty rather than a new one. So this announcement is literally NOTHING NEW.
2. “The service will have to be pragmatic which means vast public resources cannot be dedicated to every crime. Officers will consider whether they can realistically identify the person responsible or if their time should be spent on preventing other crimes from happening.” I am sure that they already do this, so again this is literally NOTHING NEW.
Q: So what exactly is being announced? A: DOCUMENTATION.
They are publishing common guidelines for use by police forces “which will provide consistent service across the country” and which “is likely to lead to, on occasions, a more thorough investigation”. Personally, I cannot consider DOCUMENTATION which is LIKELY i.e. not even guaranteed to ON OCCASIONS i.e. rarely lead to a more thorough investigation to be in any way, shape or form the same as Cruella Braverman’s suggestion that this is a crackdown on crime where “criminals will have no place to hide”.
Finally, Cruella Braverman stated that it was “unacceptable” such crimes [phone or car theft, shoplifting and criminal damage] have been treated as “less important”, but the press release makes it clear that the police are (understandably) going to continue to treat e.g. murder as more important than shoplifting, and that investigations will continue to be prioritised. Since the police’s ability to investigate e.g. shoplifting is dependent on them having sufficient resources to investigate the lowest priority crimes, the only logical conclusion to Cruella’s statement is that it is “unacceptable” not to give the police the resources they need to be able to investigate every case of e.g. shoplifting, and funding is entirely and wholly the responsibility of the Home Secretary (i.e. herself) and Government. In other words, CRUELLA IS BLAMING HERSELF. Oh what irony!!
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In a further case of irony, it turns out that this is not a new policy in any way, shape or form – see paragraph 3.5 in this 2015 Code of Practice document from the Ministry of Justice: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447967/code-of-practice-approved.pdf
3.5 In conducting an investigation, the investigator should pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry, whether these point towards or away from the suspect. What is reasonable in each case will depend on the particular circumstances.
In other words, this entire announcement is a piece of political propaganda without a shred of actual improvement.
Same old Tory lies!!!!
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Following this down the rabbit hole, it appears that this is actually part of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 Section 23 ( https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/25/section/23/1996-07-04 ) which states:
23 (1) The Secretary of State shall prepare a code of practice containing provisions designed to secure: (a) that where a criminal investigation is conducted all reasonable steps are taken for the purposes of the investigation and, in particular, all reasonable lines of inquiry are pursued;
In other words, since at least 1996 the law has made it entirely clear that it is the Home Secretary i.e. Cruella Braverman’s responsibility to secure that “all reasonable steps are taken”.
If it is genuinely “unacceptable” that this has not happened for the last 13 years, then Cruella should seriously “consider her position” and resign (though of course that would require integrity and honour, so it is never going to happen).
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