Feel-good factor of the Olympics cuts crime across the board

 
13 August 2012

The feel-good effect of the Games has led to a fall in crime levels across the board in London over the past two weeks, police say, with only 253 arrests by officers on Olympics duty.

Scotland Yard said the policing operation had been a huge success, with few crime issues and no spikes in areas such as robbery.

A total of 10,500 police officers were deployed in London during peak days — about 1,500 more than originally planned, mainly due to the shortage of G4S security guards.

Commander Bob Broadhurst said: “We have not had huge numbers of tourists attacked, robbed or fleeced, nothing like that. The mood out there has been friendly and happy.”

Many of the Olympics arrests have been for ticket touting. Mr Broadhurst said: “There have been a few professional touts but a lot of people have been caught up in the selling off of tickets because their country has been knocked out and they did not realise that it was a specific Olympic offence. Most have been cautioned, bailed and let go.”

Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, in charge of Olympic and Paralympic security, said: “This has been an absolutely fantastic Olympic Games, with the focus entirely on the sport which is how we wanted it.”

“We have been touched by the public’s warm response. It has allowed us to re-connect to the public we do not normally speak to and allowed the public to re-connect to their police service.

“Officers are human too and we also got swept up in Olympic fever. The sport has been magnificent and we have marvelled at the fantastic performances of the athletes.”

In addition to the 151 arrests for ticket touting there were 21 arrests for drugs, 16 for assault, 11 for theft, one for swimming in the Thames and one for a bomb hoax.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in