The plight of battered wives and other incidences of violence are being ignored by police, a report said yesterday. A third of the violent offences which were not recorded as crimes should have been.

An inspection of how police forces record violence showed that officers are deciding that thousands of violent incidents are not crimes.

Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, suggested that the drive to meet government targets could be one reason why officers were failing to record offences.

If the findings of the inspectorate, based on a sample of 479 cases, are repeated across all forces, it would mean that at least 5,000 offences of violence and their victims are being ignored.

Mr O’Connor said that the findings were a “matter of concern” and David Hanson, the policing minister, described such decisions by police as unacceptable.

Among the cases was that of one force which recorded that “no crime” had taken place when a woman’s partner slapped her, grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the floor, leaving her battered and bruised.

The officers wrote that the victim would say that she had injured herself and that her partner’s account was “more accurate”.

Mr O’Connor’s report said that the incident should have been recorded as actual bodily harm.

The decision to categorise some violent offences as “no crime” is said to disguise the real extent of violence in England and Wales. It also affects the assistance given to victims of attacks.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary is to begin a wider investigation next year to establish whether the findings have wider national implications.

Mr O’Connor said it was possible that government targets were giving police forces incentives not to record crimes fully.

“There are some fairly well rehearsed perverse incentives around targets and ‘no crimes’ is one of those potentially,” he said.

He added: “It’s a very high error rate on a small sample. For us as the regulator, it’s a matter of concern.”

In another incident, a man was knocked to the ground by a blow behind his ear. He was then kicked in the body. He needed six stitches in his head. The officer said he found the circumstances unusual and that the man might have been under the influence of alcohol when he fell. Mr O’Connor’s report said the incident should have been recorded as grievous bodily harm.

The report found that 36 per cent of 479 “no crime” decisions were wrong. One in 20 should have been recorded as a serious violent crime and and a third as a less serious assault.

Mr Hanson said the Government was committed to the integrity of crime statistics and that ministers expected crime to be tackled.

“The report shows the majority of forces are performing well when classifying violent crime, but there are some issues that give cause for concern, especially around the way the police handle incidents which are reported as crimes, but later downgraded to ‘no crime’,” he said.

Chris Grayling, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “All of this just further undermines confidence in the crime figures and in the criminal justice system.”

The report also called for ministers to review the 150-year-old Offences Against the Person Act, under which assault is prosecuted.

The current division of assault into many categories, such as grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm, is difficult for both officers and the public to understand, it said. Inspectors said it could be redrawn to include simple assault and assault with injury, which would be better understood by the public.

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