London: Crime has fallen by an unexpected 10 per cent over the last year, with 8 million offences estimated by the authoritative Crime Survey of England and Wales, the lowest level since it started 32 years ago.

The fall in crime in the 12 months to September 2013 is across most types of offences including a fall in the murder rate to 542 homicides recorded by the police, 11 fewer than the previous year. Overall violent crime is down by 13 per cent, according to the survey.

But the detailed police recorded crime figures also show “signs of increasing upward pressure” in specific austerity-related crimes.

These include a 4 per cent rise in shoplifting, which is up by more than 11,000 to 313,693 offences. The police recorded crime figures also show a 7 per cent rise in “theft from the person” which includes pickpocketing up to 110,408 offences.

The rise in shoplifting was seen in 29 of the 43 police force areas, with the largest increases in West Midlands (up 18 per cent), Merseyside (14 per cent) and West Yorkshire (12 per cent). In evidence of a new north-south divide shoplifting in London actually fell by 1 per cent.

The quarterly figures also show a 17 per cent increase in the number of sexual offences recorded by the police but the official statisticians say this is partly due to a “Yewtree effect”.

- more crimes being reported following the inquiry into historic sex offences after the Jimmy Savile case.

A 34 per cent increase in fraud offences is attributed to a move to a central system of recording them by police.

The crime survey estimates show that crime in England and Wales has now fallen by 58 per cent since 1995, when it peaked at more than 18m offences. The decline in crime is the longest sustained fall since the second world war and continued through the latest recession.

The contested police recorded crime figures, which lost their “national statistics” status earlier this month, also show a decline of 3 per cent over the same period.

The Office of National Statistics said that the police recorded crime figures for Kent, where action had already been taken to tackle allegations of under-recording of crime, had risen by 8 per cent. This could be a strong indicator of the overall rise in police recorded crime that is likely if similar measures are adopted by the other 42 forces.