Drink spiking offenses quadruple in London
The Met Police say it has created a "bespoke London policing response" to tackle the problem.
The Metropolitan Police say that drink spiking offenses in London have roughly quadrupled over the last five years, figures have revealed.
Met Police data shows that while there were 497 offenses related to drink spiking in the capital in 2018, the number had risen more than 300%, to 2,066 offences by 2022.
Data for 2023, which runs up to the end of October, shows that there have been 1,788 offenses so far. This means that this year's total could be even higher once November and December have been accounted for.
The force says it has created a "bespoke London policing response" to tackle the problem, and that an increased public awareness of the issue could mean that more offenses are being reported to them in previous years.
The figures were requested by Unmesh Desai, a Labour member of the London Assembly.
Mr Desai, who represents Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Tower Hamlets, and the City of London, said the statistics are “very worrying, especially as we know that it reflects only those incidents which have been reported – the true figures are probably much higher”.
There is no single offence that covers spiking. Instead, a range of more general offences can potentially be used to prosecute perpetrators, such as the offence of ‘administering a substance with intent’.
For our Spiked podcast, we spoke to Mair Howells from London, who was targeted on a night out with her sister. Mair was found locked in a toilet cubicle, covered in blood and incoherent.
You can watch it here:
A Met Police spokeswoman responded to Mr Desai's calls for the force to bring more prosecutions to rebuild the publics trust and confidence in their work:
“We have looked at the national learning around spiking and created a bespoke London policing response that aims to provide a clear, unambiguous process which supports the public and provides us with the best opportunity to capture evidence.”
Meanwhile A spokesman for mayor Sadiq Khan said: “The mayor is working closely with his Night Czar, the police and a wide range of partners to make London’s night-time venues a no-go-zone for perpetrators and those attempting to cause anyone harm.
“Any allegation of spiking is taken extremely seriously by the police who are committed to working with our night-time venues – many of which have received specialist training to recognise and help prevent these incidents."