The Guardian view on violence against women: admitting its

The Met chief says the number of abusive men is beyond the police’s capacity to cope with. Politicians need a plan for victims

Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan police, described the extent of violent crime committed by men against women as “eye-watering”. In a report last week for the London policing board, he said that with up to 4 million mostly male perpetrators of violence against women and children in England and Wales, the scale of the problem is “beyond policing and justice system capacity”. The Met’s figures show that 50% of violence suffered by women in London relates to domestic abuse, with 1m reports to police in England and Wales annually. New research from the National Police Chiefs’ Council will be published over the summer. The National Crime Agency estimates that 750,000 adults have a sexual interest in children.

Some in the women’s sector welcomed Mr Rowley’s bluntness. For England’s most senior police officer to outline the problem so clearly is preferable to it being ignored or shunted behind priorities such as counter‑terrorism and fraud. But for victims and those at risk, it is chilling to learn that that the police believe only a massively upscaled, multi-agency approach would enable them to do their job.