Almost 80 per cent of crimes committed in Haringey in the past five years have yet to be solved, a Tottenham and Wood Green Independent investigation has revealed.

Figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request from the Tottenham and Wood Green show 79.8 per cent of crimes reported to Haringey Police since 2010 remain ‘undetected’, meaning nobody was charged or prosecuted.

The statistics also show that police officers in Haringey have not managed to close 98,570 cases, ranging from murder to sexual assault and drug trafficking to burglary.

There are 94,141 unsolved cases in Enfield, 104,309 in Barnet and 54,964 in Harrow – making Barnet the borough with the highest number of unsolved crimes in north London.

In Haringey, there have been 18,504 unsolved crimes relating to what the police call ‘violence against the person’ since 2010.

This includes three murders, 1,839 instances of grievous bodily harm, 6,456 assaults in which the victim was injured and 5,048 common assaults.

A total of 35 crimes relating to offensive weapons went unsolved, and no suspects were caught in 4,295 of harassment cases.

The people responsible for 636 rapes and 975 other sexual abuse cases have not been caught.

Since 2010, the Metropolitan Police’s budget has been cut by £600million a year – which translates to a loss of 65 police officers locally.

Chancellor George Osborne announced in his autumn statement that there would be more police cuts of £800m a year in London.

Detective Superintendent Steve Wallace said detectives in the borough “never stop” looking for offenders.

But that is no consolation to one grandmother-of-four, who lives in Tottenham, who fell victim to a “cruel” distraction burglary.

Haringey has 14,895 unsolved burglaries.

The 88-year-old, a widow, was at home alone when a man claiming to be a plumber knocked on the door of her house and told her she had a leaking roof.

She let him in and offered to make him a cup of tea –but when she returned, both he, her wallet and a pearl necklace were gone.

She said: “It was a terrifying thing to have to go through. I felt violated in my own home. The police came over and they were fantastic at the time, but then I never heard anything back.

“I later contacted the police with a photograph of my stolen necklace but they weren’t interested. I felt like they didn’t care. I’ve not heard anything since and that was three years ago.”

Mr Wallace noted that although burglary levels are the highest across the whole of London, the amount of burglaries carried out has dropped by 24 per cent since 2011.

He said: “The burglary total is hugely disproportionate. It’s the crime that affects the most people.

“The reason why detection rates for burglaries look low is because there are rarely any clues for us to progress in those cases.

“Our big emphasis is reducing the number of burglaries. While our detection rate isn’t as good as we’d like it to be, it would be fair to say we’ve put in resources to bring that down.”

He also noticed that motor theft reduction is down by 27 per cent in the past 12 months, which equates to 750 fewer crimes.

He added: “To make the biggest impact, we focus on those criminals causing the greatest harm – that’s how I set up my chess pieces.

“Some of these crimes are solved in our eyes, but for one reason or another we’ve not been able to prosecute them, for instance if the offender died, has mental health difficulties, if the victim withdrew of if there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

“What’s important to us is to ensure we’ve got fewer victims.”