The lead detective for the Metropolitan Police’s operation in relation to the 2011 London riots, Operation Withern, has said that the Met are still arresting around 100 people a month over 14 months after the disturbances.
Speaking at the Global Security Summit London, Det Supt William Lyle, said that there have been over 4,700 arrests so far.
He also revealed that there had been a reduction in gang crime in the past 6-8 months but was unwilling to commit to attributing this to the conviction of offenders involved in the disturbances – despite the fact that 40% of the latest convicted offenders were linked to gangs.
A packed audience was shown some of the 200,000 hours of CCTV images that police have trawled through following the disturbances last August.
These CCTV images were the key to achieving a conviction rate of 82% of the more than 3,000 people charged in connection to the riots. CCTV operators were able to trace back through CCTV images of young people with their faces covered in order to identify them.
This involves going backwards through CCTV images to find the group of offenders meeting ahead of carrying out their crimes – and before they have had a chance to cover their faces.
Det Supt Lyle revealed a range of statistics including:
Det Supt Lyle also praised the criminal justice system, saying that courts dealt with 1,009 cases in the first week after the riots – ten times the normal volume of work – in courts that were staffed at night and through the weekend.
Between 9th-13th August 2011 there were an extra 42% prosecutors in court.
With convictions still forthcoming every week, Det Supt Lyle also revealed statistics relating specifically to the last 80 people charged. Of these:
Asked whether the conviction of criminals from gangs could be connected to an overall reduction in crime, Det Supt Lyle said that this could not be proven, but that reductions in gang crime in key areas, particularly Lambeth, had seen Police take out a significant number of gang members.
One piece of CCTV showed an entire gang attacking one shop in Lambeth – they were all convicted.
