SHOCKING new data has revealed over 22,000 criminal suspects are currently at large across the UK – but police are too busy to track them down.

Despite committing crimes as serious as assault, rape and even murder, thousands of fugitives remain on the loose after dodging their court dates.

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Shocking new data has found that over 22,000 fugitives remain at large across the UK as police are ‘too busy’ to track them down[/caption]

Many would-be prisoners even still live at their given addresses, but police are stretched so thin they are too busy to arrest them – according to an investigation by the Daily Mail.

According to a former minister, the findings “lay bare how shambolic our justice system has become”.

The investigation sent freedom of information requests to 35 of the 43 forces in England and Wales, and found there are 22,345 ‘failure to appear’ warrants currently dished out by police across the country.

However, legal experts claim the issue stems from a lack of deterrent as the punishments for failing to attend court are too soft.

Some of the warrants date back as far as 1980, and over 2,000 relate to violent crimes including homicide, rape and assault.

The shocking freedom of information data found that over 400 alleged sexual offenders remain at large.

At least 11 murder suspects were also on the list.

Police deny releasing alleged murderers on bail, saying they instead bolted after having arrests for lesser offences upgraded.

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Criminals dodging their day in court is a serious problem for police forces up and down the country – with grime star Wiley even taking to taunting coppers online after skipping his court date.

Despite facing charges of assaulting former world kickboxing champion Ali Jacko last year, the rapper goaded the police on his Twitter account after failing to appear in court.

Former home affairs minister David Mellor said: “It is really not acceptable for people to evade punishment by a court by the simple expedient of not turning up.

“You would expect in a properly run criminal justice system that the failure to turn up would be immediately followed up by police and the defendant would face the immediate loss of liberty before the case was properly dealt with.

“The fact that little or nothing seems to be happening is a sure sign of the shambles which our once much vaunted criminal justice system has descended into.”

A spokesman from the National Police Chiefs’ Council said forces work hard to enforce court appearances, however a senior police source instead told the Mail that officers often do not have the necessary resources to track fugitives down.

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Police forces are stretched so thin that thousands of fugitives are able to avoid jail-time simply by skipping their court dates, new data shows[/caption]

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Rapper Wiley taunted coppers online after dodging his day in court[/caption]

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