Spike in violent crime

The jump in numbers makes for grim reading, with violent crimes such as murder, attempted murder and serious assault up 17.1% on last year’s figures. The number of reported rapes almost doubled over the same period, from 107 to 198, as sexual crime overall shot up drastically by 65.9%.

Despite these worrying statistics, the inspection report, published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS), states that Fife is still a ‘safe place,’ with the number of crimes per 10,000 of the population remaining below the national average.

Police Scotland are attributing the sharp rises in violent and sexual crime to raised awareness as a result of high profile media coverage of historic investigations as well as an increasingly strong approach to investigation. But the huge increase in reported sexual assaults has prompted the launch of a new examination of rape investigations within Fife, and will be published in a separate report.

Chief superintendent Garry McEwan explained, “The review period covered 2013-14, a time when there was a noticeable increase in private space violence across Fife, specifically relating to domestic abuse. However, by implementing a smarter and more coordinated partnership approach to tackling this issue - which has included supporting victims, whilst proactively and robustly tackling offenders - we are now witnessing a reduction in such offences across Fife.” Overall there has been a rise of six per cent for reported crime in Fife over the previous year, which goes against the trend of a slight reduction for the whole of Scotland. However notable improvements can be seen in figures for vandalism and road traffic casualties, both of which fell over the past year.

Despite the jump in violent and sexual crime, the Fife public’s faith in Police Scotland appears to be growing, with the overall level of satisfaction increasing and complaints about police officers in Fife falling.