The number of violent crimes across the capital has gone up by over 11,000 incidents in the last twelve months – the latest crime figures from the Met Police have revealed.

Rape, gun crime, sexual assaults and domestic attacks have also seen a rise in the last 12 months across the 32 London boroughs, but there has been significant reductions in ‘neighbourhood crimes’ such as theft and burglary.

There were far fewer killings in 2014 than other years, with the lowest number in a calendar year since 1969.

However, gun crime is up by 28 offences, around two per cent.

Knife crime offences were reduced by almost 400. However, in contrast to overall knife crimes, knife injuries are up by 12 per cent at 374 incidents.

The total number of all sexual offences increased by 29 per cent over the comparison period, with recorded rape offences up by 20 per cent at 857 offences and other serious sexual offences up by 36 per cent at 1,885 offences.

According to police the rise has been driven by both victim confidence and improved crime recording, as well as the high profile Operation Yewtree and widespread publicity around Jimmy Savile.

Domestic abuse offences also rose by 20.4 per cent, while racist and religious hate crime has increased by 25.7 per cent.

The MPS believes these increases are down to a range of factors, including a growing willingness of victims to report hate crime and the police being better equipped to respond to allegations with specialist officers.

In the last financial year there were 6,560 more offences of violence which ended with an injury (VWI) recorded than the previous 12 months.

Theft of motor vehicles has also risen in London by 6.6 per cent.

However, police attribute the 18.9 per cent rise in VWI crimes to ‘more accurate crime recording’ rather than a rise in violence on the streets.

Officers have also concluded that around a third of violent crimes come from domestic abuse cases.

The Met has in fact praised its officers and operations after pointing out that the figures also indicate reductions in a number of crimes, including robbery, burglary and theft, which they call ‘key neighbourhood categories’.

There was a seven per cent reduction overall in ‘neighbourhood crimes’ equating to nearly 25,000 fewer offences in the capital between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015.

Robberies are down by 22.5 per cent according to Met figures at 6,347 fewer offences.

There has also been a 38 per cent drop in the numbers of robberies of mobile phones with 5,000 fewer offences.

In 2014/15 there were also 11,250 fewer offences of ‘theft from person’.

Theft from motor vehicles also reduced by 20 per cent, over 12,300 fewer crimes, and there were 11,635 fewer burglaries across both residential and business categories in London.

MPS Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Territorial Policing, Mark Simmons, said: “We are moving in the right direction on some of the key neighbourhood crime categories with some very good reductions, as well as seeing some equally encouraging results in homicide and knife crime.

“However we are not complacent and acknowledge there is still much hard work to do. We will continue to keep up our intensified focus on areas such as violence with injury where we have seen a rise in recorded offences.

“I hope that Londoners will gain confidence from the improvements we have achieved and I'd like to assure them of our continuing commitment to making the capital an even safer place to live, work in, and visit.”