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Home / Lifestyle

Figures reveal UK police are dealing with 20 'Tinder crimes' a week

By Katherine Rushton
Daily Mail·
28 Jan, 2019 01:38 AM3 mins to read

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Police in the UK now receive more than 20 reports a week linked to the online dating app. Photo / 123rf

Police in the UK now receive more than 20 reports a week linked to the online dating app. Photo / 123rf

The number of Tinder-related police call-outs has more than doubled in the last three years, official figures show.

Police now receive more than 20 reports a week linked to the online dating app. As recently as 2015, police had about eight Tinder-related calls a week, or a total of 442.

Police figures indicate this rose to 1,087 in 2018 – although as not every force provided a full set of figures, the true total is likely to be even higher.

The statistics come as teaching assistant Anna Rowe, 44, revealed how she went to the police after being duped into an affair with a married father she met on Tinder.

Ms Rowe, from Canterbury, Kent, spoke to 'Anthony Ray' for six months before he disappeared and she now wants the Government to make posing as someone online to forge a fake relationship illegal.

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The jump in reports follows a spate of high-profile crimes in which fraudsters, rapists and killers have used the smartphone app to trawl for victims.

Forces did not specify the nature of the incidents logged, but previous research has found that around a third of crimes involving dating apps are sexual assaults and rapes.

Freedom of information requests sent to every British police force found Devon and Cornwall to have the most Tinder-related call-outs, with 86 in the year to December 10.

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Assuming they continued to receive calls at the same rate, this would have risen to 91 by the year's end.

Essex and the West Midlands were close behind with 84 and 83 respectively, based on similar calculations.

Many incidents occurred on public transport, with British Transport Police recording 51 calls in 2018.

A number of forces did not respond to the request, while others did not provide figures for the entire year, meaning the true scale of the problem is likely to be even greater than the data suggests.

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The changing face of dating – and the associated risks – have prompted some innovative responses by police.

Avon and Somerset police placed its own 'lonely hearts' listing on Tinder in 2015 – using the name Bobby – to warn users to stay safe when meeting strangers.

Serial con-artist Kris Lyndsay, from St Austell in Cornwall, was jailed for four years in 2016 after using Tinder to swindle women.

Lyndsay conned his victims out of $25,000 before he was jailed.

He told them he had lost his wife and daughter in a car crash to win their trust and boasted about his fictitious businesses.

Mother-of-two Annemarie Fletcher, from Glastonbury in Somerset, parted with a watch and diamond ring worth $77,000 after he claimed he was having cash flow issues at work.

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In 2017, Jonathan Frame was jailed for 18 months following a similar scam. The 32-year-old from Swinton, Greater Manchester, would take control of his partners' bank accounts to fund a lavish lifestyle. He admitted defrauding two women of $13,400.

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