A very disturbing article in the Financial Times recently about top Indian businessmen getting mugged in London. A message that was improbably passed on to the Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Lammy when he was in New Delhi. Probably not what he thought he was going there to discuss. So I decided to do some research. Using a UKCrimeStats and running a report from the neighbourhoods page, I was able to identify which Police neighbourhood across England (except for the Greater Manchester Police area which are still not providing data since June 2019), Wales and NI had the most “theft from the person” in calendar 2024, as measured by thefts per hectare. To further clarify, “Theft from the person” means crimes that involve theft directly from the victim (including handbag, wallet, cash, mobile phones) but without the use or threat of physical force.
And here are the results;
| Neighbourhood | Policeforce | Land Area (Hectares) | Theft From Person per Hectare | Total in 2023 |
| West End | Metropolitan Police Service | 228 | 57 | 13117 |
| St James’s | Metropolitan Police Service | 343 | 23 | 7894 |
| Bloomsbury | Metropolitan Police Service | 124 | 15 | 1879 |
| Holborn and Covent Garden | Metropolitan Police Service | 111 | 14 | 1532 |
| Camden Town | Metropolitan Police Service | 61 | 14 | 831 |
| Borough and Bankside | Metropolitan Police Service | 120 | 10 | 1181 |
| Hoxton East and Shoreditch | Metropolitan Police Service | 102 | 8 | 842 |
| Finsbury Park | Metropolitan Police Service | 84 | 8 | 658 |
| Colville | Metropolitan Police Service | 49 | 8 | 369 |
| Bunhill | Metropolitan Police Service | 85 | 7 | 589 |
I have to say, I was shocked by the results. The West End neighbourhood of London had an average of 35 such incidents every day in 2023 or a total of 13,117. Unquestionably, there has been a massive growth of this type of crime in the West End, with November and December 2023 registering nearly 2,000 such incidents. But when you look back over time at the monthly totals, you would reckon with a – still high – few hundred (and just a handful during Covid).
Moreover, London looms largely in the highest results, with only the City Centre South in Liverpool and Regency Business neighbourhoods in the top 20.
To reduce the likelihood of getting mugged, here are some useful tips from the London Metropolitan Police. In crime matters, prevention is always easier than cure. Meanwhile, we wish the Met well in bringing down these high numbers.