Burglary has dropped in Bromley despite a spike in organised crime gangs causing havoc at the turn of the year.

Between January and May there were nearly over 1,000 burglaries in Bromley, up 10 per cent on the same period last year.

At a safer partnership meeting, Met safeguarding officer Paul Warnett said that gangs had been targeting the borough.

He said: “In the last four weeks we haven’t seen any particular spikes in crime. We do know that there were some real issues relating to burglary and robbery going back a few months.”

“We know that – or we believe – that they were organised teams coming into the borough to target high valued properties.”

Areas such as Chislehurst have been targeted by the crooks , with police investigating serious burglaries that on one occasion had thieves loot £1.4m from a mansion as a family were held hostage.

Another occasion saw armed thugs smashing their way into a family home before threatening a child and spraying liquid in a 81-year-olds face.

Out of 261,965 domestic burglary offences last year, just one in ten was solved, according to current statistics.

Between January and February of this year – Bromley had more reported home burglaries than any other borough in south east London.

However, despite the chilling burglaries plaguing the suburbs earlier this year, the Met has said the trend has gone away.

Mr Warnett  said: “The burglary seems to have now settled. Those areas that were targeted, Farnborough Park, etc,  have put their own security such as fences and cameras up whilst working with the police and it seems to have gone away.

“We are still seeing some robberies across the borough, but we are getting some good arrests. The biggest area of offending is motor vehicle crime – high value vehicles being broken into and stolen.”