David Ruffley

Up to six million police hours a year are being wasted on bureaucracy, says a damning review.

Officers are 'straitjacketed' by red tape and reduced to arresting the most minor of offenders to meet crime targets.

The withering verdict is passed by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his bombshell review of the state of the police service.

Police numbers are falling at their fastest rate in seven years because of a pounds 3 billion funding hole, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Home Office figures due out next Thursday will lay bare how ministers are relying increasingly on community support officers with fewer powers to carry out day-to-day policing tasks.

The number of crimes being solved by police has fallen or ground to a halt in nearly two thirds of forces in England and Wales, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

Experts said the poor record on catching criminals called into question the effectiveness of the extra billions of pounds spent by Labour on policing over the past decade.

The detection rate has fallen by 1.5 percentage points since 1997 to 30.3 per cent of all crimes reported to the police in 2006/7, not including the British Transport Police.

The cost of police overtime has more than doubled to £411million a year under Labour because of the mountain of paperwork tying officers to their desks.

This would pay for 8,220 more beat bobbies for a year.

Last night ministers were blamed for failing to cut red tape and their handling of jail overcrowding, which has seen officers guarding criminals in police cells. Tory police reform spokesman David Ruffley , who obtained the figures, said: "This overtime is being used to do ever more paperwork.

Britons are heavier drinkers than the Russians, according to official data from the World Health Organisation.

Alcohol consumption per head is greater in the UK, and England on its own tops the European table for child and teenage drunkenness.

Opposition politicians seized on the disclosure to demand that the government should reconsider its liberal policy on alcohol, as it prepares to publish a review of 24-hour drinking laws.

Foreign crooks have been left free to commit crimes in Britain - because prosecutors mislaid a data disc.

Police have now launched a manhunt to trace 15 dangermen.

The disc with the crooks' details and crucial DNA samples was delivered to the Crown Prosecution Service in January 2007 - then lost for more than a YEAR.

It finally turned up after a search last week, sources say.

During the time it was missing, 11 of the crooks are believed to have been responsible for assaults, thefts and burglaries in the UK.

CD held information on 4,000 offenders

DNA details included murderers and rapists

Serious offenders on the run from the Netherlands have been able to commit further crimes in Britain after the Crown Prosecution Service mislaid a computer disc containing their details.

Home Office ministers were told within the past two or three weeks that a disc containing details of 4,000 offenders whom the Dutch authorities wished to trace had been missing for almost a year.

Foreign murderers and rapists have been free to prey on the British public for a year because of yet another data loss scandal.

DNA samples for up to 4,000 suspects, wanted for a range of serious crimes, were circulated throughout Europe by the Dutch authorities in January 2007.

In Britain, they were sent to the Attorney General's office, which passed them to the Crown Prosecution Service.

LEAKED MEMO: NOW POLICE WANT RESIDENTS TO PATROL THEIR STREETS

Teams of Neighbourhood Watch members are to be asked to do jobs previously left to the police.

The civilian groups could spy on villains, patrol crime-hit estates at night and even check car tax discs.

In some cases they would form secret groups to gather intelligence. Details of the plan are contained in a leaked memo sent to chief constables in the last few days. It brought immediate accusations that the Government is aiming for more policing 'on the cheap'.

Thousands to go as police replaced by civilians, spy cameras and computers

Thousands of police jobs will be axed as more civilians and high-tech equipment are used in the war against crime.

Routine tasks done by cops will be taken on by civilian staff in a huge shake up of the service.

And spy cameras and computer wizardry will be used more to capture crooks.

The huge changes were announced in the Commons by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday and spelt out in detail in a review of policing by top cop Sir Ronnie Flanagan.