Met boss Mark Rowley hits out at Trump’s claims about London crime as homicide rates fall
Britain’s top police officer has hit out at critics who “promote their own narratives” about crime levels in London after murders in the capital fell to their lowest level in more than a decade.
This comes after Donald Trump claimed there were no-go areas for Met Police officers; Nigel Farage described the city as “in the grip of a crime wave”.
But Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley criticized “commentators” for sharing false claims online, highlighting new figures showing 2025 is one of the safest years for serious violent crime.
Meanwhile, London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan accused critics of “painting a dystopian picture of a lawless place where criminals roam” and argued they “couldn’t be more wrong”.
It comes after new figures showed there were 97 murders in the capital in 2025, down 11 per cent from 109 murders in 2024. This is also the lowest recorded number since 95 homicides in 2014, 11 years ago.
Despite London’s growing population over the past decade, its murder rate per capita last year was the lowest on record (1.1 per 100,000), according to figures from the Metropolitan Police.
This rate is lower than other major cities around the world, such as New York at 2.8 per 100,000 people, Berlin at 3.2 and Paris at 1.6.
Writing in The Times, Sir Mark said: “London today has the lowest levels of murder and the lowest level per capita in a decade.
“Despite claims circulating online, including AI-generated videos creating fictional violent scenarios, some commentators are promoting a narrative that suits them, even though the facts tell a very different story.
“London is safer and the progress we are making is saving lives, it is measurable and it is independently proven. This is not a matter of opinion or message – the data shows it.”
He added: “We are proud to represent Londoners and will speak out for the truth, something that is more important than ever in this age of misinformation and disinformation.”
Meanwhile, writing in the Guardian, Sir Sadiq said: “In recent years politicians and commentators have sought to spam our social media feeds with an endless stream of distortions and lies, painting a dystopian picture of a lawless place where criminals run rampant.
“On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump has inexplicably wavered between describing London as a city moving towards sharia law and a place where hospitals and police do not want to go, such as ‘war zones’.
“Here in Britain, Nigel Farage is dancing to his own tune. The leader of Reform UK claimed last week that London was ‘in the grip of a crime wave’. Meanwhile, the party’s new London mayoral candidate claimed people pity Londoners because they live in a city that is ‘no longer safe’.”
“This latest startling statistic shows that those who belittle the capital at every opportunity could not be more wrong: the evidence is clear in London, we are winning the war on violent crime.”
The figures released by the Met come as the latest crime figures in England and Wales show the number of murders has also fallen to the lowest levels since current reporting methods began in 2003.
According to the Office for National Statistics, around 518 murders were recorded by police by June 2025; this was a 6% drop from the previous year’s 552 murders and 27 per cent below the pre-pandemic total of 710 in 2019/20.
The Met said its anti-homicide work was particularly strong in preventing violence among young people, with the smallest number of victims this century being under 25 and a 73 per cent drop in the number of young victims since 2021, from 30 to eight in 2025.
The violence reduction unit, which the mayor of London set up in 2019, is believed to be part of such efforts, making 550,000 interventions to stop young people being drawn into gangs.
The Met also said confidence in the police was rising, with 81 per cent of Londoners considering the force doing a good or fair job locally.
But it follows a review published on Thursday that found 131 officers and staff at the Met, including two serial rapists, committed crimes or misconduct after not being properly vetted.
It found that thousands of police officers and staff were not properly checked during a national recruitment campaign from July 2019 to March 2023.
The Met said it had taken action to clean up its workforce and tighten inspection standards and was open and transparent about some historic practices that did not meet current standards.
