A critical report has revealed West Yorkshire Police failed to record a third of crimes - including rape and robberies.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) took samples of crimes logged across the county in a 12-month period.

But the findings of the report, which have only just been made public, show a high error rate in crime recording which is described as a ‘matter of serious concern’.

The inspectorate examined a sample of 260 incidents in West Yorkshire, where crimes were reported directly from the victim, and found 221 should have been recorded as crimes but only 150 were, of which 11 were wrongly classified.

Five were recorded outside the 72-hour limit allowed under the Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR).

A further sample of records which the force had classified as ‘no crime’ found that of 105 crimes reviewed just 65 were correctly categorised despite being for serious incidents such as rape, robbery and violence.

But the most serious errors were found on rape recording out of a sample of 35 cases classified as ‘no crime’ only 23 were correctly categorised.

Temporary Deputy Chief Constable John Robins, of West Yorkshire Police said: “We welcome the findings and recommendations of the report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary. We fully supported the audit and inspection throughout.

“It is essential that the public of West Yorkshire feel reassured that their crime is recorded accurately and that it is properly investigated.

“The HMIC has made a number of recommendations on how we record and finalise crime reports. Many of the recommendations relate to issues we had already identified and acted upon as part of our commitment to achieve the highest standards of crime and incident data quality.

“Since the audit, we have carried out a great deal of work and invested resources in this area, to get things right first time. Over the last year we have continued to audit and inspect our crime recording process, to ensure that it is robust, transparent and accountable.

“We recognise that improvements still need to be made in some areas and we are determined to ensure the quality of our data is of the highest standard.

“Accurate crime recording is one of the key building blocks to meeting our ambition to provide a world class policing service, by keeping people safe and feeling safer.

“There is no doubt that for the tenth year in a row, crime has fallen across West Yorkshire.”