Sexual offences, domestic abuse and knife crime are helping to fuel the increase in crime across the city of Leeds, reports one of the city's most senior police officers.
Leeds District Commander, Superintendent Steve Dodds also highlighted malicious online messages as one of the reasons behind the rising crime statistics in the city. Recorded crime is up 7.6% in the year up to September 2022 when compared with pre-pandemic levels.
While speaking at a meeting of senior Leeds councillors on Wednesday, he said that although recorded incidents of anti-social behaviour had fallen, this was as a result of a change in how offences are recorded.
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He also said that West Yorkshire Police was expecting to reach a "landmark" of having its highest number of officers since 2010 later this year. Speaking at the council’s executive board meeting, Supt Dodds said: "We’ve seen a significant increase in recorded crime over the last few years, particularly coming out of the pandemic.
"Leeds in the year to date has seen a 7.6% increase in crime. A lot of this is around serious sexual offending and domestic abuse, but also in non-injury violence and a lot of online malicious communications offences as well."
Supt Dodds has been in his post since last June, said Leeds remained an "extremely challenging" district for policing, noting the city itself is bigger than other entire police forces elsewhere in the country.
But the leader of Leeds’ Conservative group, Councillor Andrew Carter said he was confused by numbers indicating anti-social behaviour had declined. He said: "Most members of the public and most members of council would say, ‘That’s not our experience’.
"Many of us in our own areas are seeing an increase in various forms of anti-social behaviour moving as far up as the carrying of offensive weapons and intimidating members of the public."
Supt Dodds replied: "Part of the reduction in instances of anti-social behaviour is down to the way we record and deal with some of those offences.
"We are recording more public order based offences rather than anti-social behaviour. We deal with the issues you raise around knife crime and violence reklated to that under different criteria.
"We’ve absolutely seen an increase in instances of knife crime, particularly in key areas of the city where our focus is."
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