Police clean up on 'easy' crimes

POLICE are massaging their crime clear-up rates by concentrating on solving minor offences such as cakes being thrown on buses and hair pulling in the school playground.

In some forces such offences, which involve suspects being questioned and warned but not charged, account for up to a third of all crimes solved.

Police chiefs are considering abolishing the practice because it is diverting officers from pursuing more serious crime.

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