Back to The Brief The Brief · Recorded crime

Flintshire shoplifting rises as total recorded crime falls

ONS tables show 1,036 shoplifting offences in the year to June 2026, up from 974, while the county’s total excluding fraud fell to 9,658.

Chris Allen · Thu 22 Oct, 22:07

Archive article. Published on Thu 22 Oct, 22:07. Conditions may have changed since this reporting.

Flintshire County Hall in Mold, photographed in June 2011. Archive photograph: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped.

Archive view of Flintshire County Hall in Mold, June 2011. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped. County context, not a crime scene.

Original photograph CC BY-SA 3.0

Police recorded 1,036 shoplifting offences in Flintshire in the year to June 2026, up by 62 from the previous year, even as the county’s overall recorded crime total fell. The Office for National Statistics tables put the total, excluding fraud, at 9,658 against 9,820 in the year to June 2025. That is a fall of 162 offences, or 1.6%, while shoplifting rose by 6.4%. Both percentages are calculated from the published counts.

Flintshire recorded offences: year to June 2025 → year to June 2026

6 figures

Total excluding fraud: 9,820 → 9,658
Violence with injury: 1,096 → 952
Burglary: 341 → 303
Vehicle offences: 280 → 245
Sexual offences: 389 → 465
Drug offences: 214 → 326

Source: ONS / Home Office, Tables C2 and C5

Different offences moved in different directions

Violence with injury fell from 1,096 offences to 952, burglary from 341 to 303, and vehicle offences from 280 to 245. Sexual offences increased from 389 to 465 and drug offences from 214 to 326. Those movements describe offences recorded by police, rather than every crime experienced by residents. The ONS cautions that changes in police activity, recording practices and public reporting can influence recorded crime trends. A change in the figures should not be read on its own as a measure of changing prevalence.

A lower recorded rate within North Wales

Flintshire’s total recorded crime rate, excluding fraud, was 62.0 offences per 1,000 people. Cover’s comparison of the six named North Wales local-authority areas in the same table puts it second lowest, behind Anglesey at 55.3. The rates use resident population estimates. ONS notes that places drawing in people for work or leisure can have their rates affected because those visitors are not counted in the resident population denominator. Police-recorded crime figures are official statistics, rather than accredited official statistics, and do not measure the same thing as the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

ONS Police Force Area tables, year ending June 2026, Tables C2, C4 and C5.; Methodology.

Sources: ons.gov.ukons.gov.uk

How we verified this(6)

ONS workbook downloaded HTTP 200 from exact yearendingjune2026 release. Tables C2 and C5 independently verify current and prior counts for stable LA code W06000005, row 265; C4 verifies local rates.
C3 heading inconsistently mentions March 2025. No reliance placed on that title or percentages: C5 explicitly gives year ending June 2025 and both periods’ raw counts independently used for labelled arithmetic.
Same provider and geography throughout. Total excludes fraud. No comparison with Cover one-mile town circles or crime outcomes/convictions. All six named North Wales authorities checked before second-lowest rank, unassigned area excluded.
No named suspects, victims, addresses, individual cases or allegation of police misconduct. No causal claim, actual-prevalence claim or inference that more recorded drug offences means more use.
ONS bulletin caveats and CSP notes read. Three-year competitor figure not used without separately reconciling historical primary.
Existing licensed Rept0n1x County Hall archive inspected, dated and clearly identified as geographical context, not crime scene or police headquarters. Instagram deferred.

ShareWhatsApp X