Flintshire crime falls by over 7% but questions remain over the reliability of figures.

Official figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show offences recorded by North Wales Police fell by nearly 12 per cent in 12 months to last September.

However, with figures at there lowest in 32 years nationally, an MP led inquiry uncovered allegations of widespread manipulation by police forces, this has led the ONS to effectively remove their ‘Gold Standard’ mark as they do not meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics.

In Flintshire the number of recorded crimes for the 12 months to September fell by over 7 per cent from 7599 to 7053.

Bicycle theft has seen the greatest increase with around 13 a month stolen in Flintshire.

Sex crimes have increased by 22 per cent to 143 – an increase of 26, this is partly due to the “Yewtree effect”, named after the police investigation into high profile Jimmy Savile investigation and the north Wales centred ‘Operation Pallial‘

The most significant fall has been public order offences which decreased by around 14.7 per cent over the reporting period.

The graph below shows the year on year movement, red being an increase in that specific crime, green a decrease.

Recorded Crime Figures Flintshire

[dciframe]http://cf.datawrapper.de/T0STX/4/,640,480,0,no,border:0px solid blue;align:left;[/dciframe]