Ealing recorded the most thefts from vehicles in London, with Newham close behind

Ealing recorded more theft from a vehicle offences than any other London borough between October 2025 and September 2026. The Metropolitan Police logged 2,801 there, which is 6.3% of the London total.

Which London boroughs have the most theft from cars

Newham came a close second with 2,758 offences. No other borough moved as far in the wrong direction. Its count was 38.9% higher than in the previous twelve months, the biggest rise in the table. Westminster was third with 1,998, but its figure went the other way. It fell by 37.2%, the sharpest drop of any borough.

Wandsworth was fourth with 1,971, up 17.3%, and Barnet was fifth with 1,909. Hillingdon recorded exactly the same number as Barnet. Together, the five boroughs at the top of the ranking accounted for 25.6% of all theft from a vehicle offences recorded in London, or about a quarter.

Kingston upon Thames recorded the fewest, at 479 offences. Sutton had 581. Merton and Bexley came next, with 621 and 623. All four are outer London boroughs.

Theft from vehicles across London over the past year

Across the 32 boroughs in the Met’s file, 44,663 offences were recorded over the period, 6.1% fewer than the year before. More boroughs saw a fall than a rise. Some of the biggest drops were in inner London: Kensington and Chelsea was down 28.3%, Islington 27.1%, Camden 26.4% and Hackney 23.5%. Hounslow fell 21.4% and Waltham Forest 20.0%.

The rises were smaller, Newham apart. The next largest increases were in Wandsworth, up 17.3%, and Greenwich, up 15.3%. Havering followed at 13.4%. Ealing’s own count went down slightly, by 1.8%.

What the theft from vehicle figures do not show

These are offences the Metropolitan Police recorded, not every offence that happened. If recording practice changes, or more or fewer people report a theft, the count moves as well. The figures are not adjusted for how many people live in, work in or travel through each borough, or for how many cars are parked there. A busy central borough such as Westminster would be expected to record more of most crimes than a quiet outer one. So a high count does not mean any one car parked there is more likely to be targeted, and a low count does not make a street safe.

The City of London is not in the table. It has its own force, the City of London Police, and is not covered by this dataset.

How2London worked out these figures from MPS Recorded Crime: Geographic Breakdown, which the Metropolitan Police Service publishes on the London Datastore. We added up every offence recorded as theft from a vehicle in each borough over the period and ranked the boroughs by the total. We then worked out each one’s share of the London figure. The full ranking for all 32 boroughs is printed below.