More than 100 crimes reported at Essex churches last year

An investigation by Countryside Alliance found churches across the county reported 128 crimes to the police in 2019.

In the three years leading to 2019 there were 442 crimes recorded at churches in the county.

After submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to Essex Police, the rural campaigning group found that churches in and across the county are not only being targeted for their lead, but that there were also multiple other crimes recorded including vandalism and assault.

This total includes 78 cases of theft; 43 cases of criminal damage and 7 cases of violence taking place from July 2019 to September 2020, a time period including the national lockdown.

Sarah Lee of the Countryside Alliance said “Taking into account that during some of this year, the country was in lockdown, it is chilling to learn that criminals either acting alone or in gangs have taken advantage of this awful pandemic and continued to target churches.

"Of course, people need to have open access to our religious sanctuaries, but the warnings from last year backed up by these latest figures, must be heeded if we are to seriously protect our places of worship.

"We need to ramp up access to a greater amount of funding from the protective security scheme and ensure the scheme remains available going forward. It will also require greater vigilance from the public, particularly in rural areas, where suspicious activity must be reported to police."

Across the UK, some 5,831 crimes were reported at churches and religious buildings in 2019.

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