Criminals are escaping justice because police and prosecutors are focusing on soft targets, a leading police officer warned today.

Government targets are making officers and the Crown Prosecution Service "skew" their operations towards easy results, Bob Quick, the chief constable of Surrey told the Evening Standard.

He said his force's rating as the country's best performing was misleading, adding: "We are not doing as well as it seems."

His intervention will fuel concerns that police are not acting on difficult cases - such as street robbers, burglars and car criminals - to concentrate instead on cautioning shoplifters and issuing on-the-spot fines for cannabis possession.

The chief constable warned that nationally the percentage of offenders being convicted in the courts had fallen from 60 per cent to 47 per cent in the last two years.

The latest Home Office statistics show that in spite of a 5.3 per cent increase in the number of crimes detected, 4.4 per cent fewer people were taken to court.

Mr Quick said: "We are at risk of claiming statistical success when real operational issues remain to be addressed."

Surrey Police's own statistics show that it expects up to 29.6 per cent of all "notifiable offences" - those recorded as crimes - to result in a "detection" (which includes a caution being issued against people who admit a crime without them going to court, and having it "taken into account" in court).

Mr Quick said another factor was that the Crown Prosecution Service had a different target: to reduce the number of failed prosecutions. This meant prosecutors were always looking for sure-fire cases where they could be more completely certain of a victory.

Mr Quick said: "This seems to create a risk-averse culture where only dead certainties are prosecuted.

"More capable criminals, motivated to exploit every legal and procedural loophole are more likely to have these cases dropped. We must be prepared to take more risk in prosecuting prolific and serious criminals and let courts and juries do their job.

"Victims want to see perpetrators in court. Our officers are actively pursuing serious and persistent offenders. We should be taking more cases to court."

In one recent case, four people were arrested for robbing passers-by in the street in Guildford. They were caught, and police took statements from victims and witnesses. But the police had to appeal twice to the CPS before charges were brought.

Mr Quick added: "All too often, difficult cases slip through the net."

University of Kent criminologist Marian FitzGerald said: "Ministers have attached increasing political importance to claiming detection rates are up and this means the police are having to focus on minor offences where they can get quick wins in order to get the Government off their back."

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