Less than one in ten burglaries solved in West Sussex

The temporary chief constable of Sussex Police, Giles York, admitted the force needs to ‘get better at investigating’ during an accountability meeting with Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne on Friday May 16.

Mrs Bourne said she was ‘particularly concerned’ about the detection rate of burglaries - dwelling and other - which stands at 8.3 per cent in West Sussex.

“That’s really, really low,” she said. “You’re only solving less than one in ten.”

Mr York said: “We are taking this very seriously. I think there are two very clear reasons why this number has fallen.

“The first and most important is we just need to get better at investigating.”

He went on to blame a new computer system used to store data recently rolled out across the force.