Lincolnshire police have failed to record thousands of crimes, including rape.
A report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate rated the force as “inadequate” and says “much work remains to be done”.
But the force has said it was not the case that the 9,400 crimes were not recorded, but they weren’t recorded correctly.
“We are deeply disappointed by this report and absolutely committed to ensuring we resolve the problem quickly and effectively,” said Deputy Chief Constable Craig Naylor.
“We have made mistakes and we will not shirk from accepting and correcting them. We recognised last year that we needed to improve our crime recording processes and have put measures in place since this inspection,” he said.
“There are no ‘missed’ victims or offenders, what we have missed is the correct procedure.”
But the inspection report says: “The 18.8 per cent of reported crimes that went unrecorded included a large proportion of common assaults and malicious communication offences and a small number of more serious crimes, including sexual offences, grievous bodily harm and rape. Some of these crimes involved domestic abuse.
“This means that on too many occasions, the force is failing victims of crime.”
The county’s police and crime commissioner Marc Jones said he was “dismayed” at the inadequate rating.
Mr Jones said he had taken “swift and decisive” action is setting up a panel to oversee recording procedure improvements.
“I don’t believe the report adequately reflects the everyday effort of the officers and staff,” he said.
The inspector said the force had made some improvements since a raft of recommendations were made in 2014.
