MORE than ten crimes a day are being committed at churches and other places of worship across the UK, new figures show.
In 2025, 3637 crimes were committed on church property and other religious premises, new figures obtained by Freedom of Information (FoI) requests from the Countryside Alliance (CA) show.
The CA’s FoI requests were made to all of the country’s 45 territorial police forces. By last week, 44 police forces had responded to the CA’s requests, 37 of whom had provided the group with figures.
The CA has compiled the figures for the past eight years. In total, those figures revealed a total of 43,853 crimes recorded since 2017, which include 17,338 thefts, 12,430 cases of criminal damage and arson, and 5696 cases of violence.
The latest data show that there were 3637 records of theft, burglary, criminal damage, vandalism, and assault from 1 January to 31 December. A further 172 crimes of different categories bring the total recorded crimes to 3809. This translates, on average, to more than ten crimes at churches and places of worship every day last year.
A press release from the CA said that the “true figure will likely be higher, given that a number of police forces refused to provide data for recorded crimes at churches in their areas. A key issue raised by the investigation is the differences between police forces and how they categorise data, making it harder to paint a true picture of the scale of the problem.”
The CA explained that 58 lead- and metal-thefts were recorded, together with 1561 other thefts and burglaries, 1018 incidents of criminal damage, vandalism, and arson, and 1000 cases of violence. Vandalism and violence made up the majority of the offences, the CA said.
London was the worst-affected area: 531 crimes were recorded by the Metropolitan Police (and an additional 30 by the City of London Police); this was followed by West Yorkshire (445 recorded crimes) and Greater Manchester (172 recorded crimes).
The Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the National Churches Trust, Ben Sims, said: “The National Churches Trust welcomes this new report by the Countryside Alliance. . . If volunteers are not supported, and if funding is not easily accessible, this is just one of many sad outcomes.
“Already this year, the Government has imposed VAT on 21,000 historic places of worship. By further demoralising volunteers, and causing chaos for ongoing restoration projects, this leads to churches becoming more vulnerable. We should be helping those who wish to safeguard our national heritage, not making their lives more difficult.”
The Director of External Affairs for the Countryside Alliance, Mo Metcalf-Fisher, said: “Across the country, churches and places of worship continue to suffer, as vandals, thieves and other criminals treat them as easy targets.
“We cannot allow this to continue. Churches and places of worship are focal points for local communities, particularly in rural towns and villages where they play a crucial role in combatting isolation. It is vital that the public keep a watchful eye and report any issues to the police.”
