Police logged 100 crimes in central Witney in August, the fewest in two years, and violent crime fell 17% over the year. Carterton went the other way.
Police recorded 100 crimes and anti-social behaviour reports within a mile of central Witney in August 2026. That is the lowest monthly total in the two years of data we checked. The previous low was 117, in February 2026.
August is one month, and one month can mislead. But the longer trend points the same way. Across the 12 months to August, recorded crime in central Witney fell by 12%, and violent crime fell by 17%.
The figures are the street-level data Thames Valley Police supplies to police.uk. We downloaded them through the data.police.uk API on 4 October. August 2026 is the latest month published.
The month in numbers
The 100 reports in August broke down like this:
| Type of crime | August 2025 | July 2026 | August 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 84 | 76 | 44 |
| Anti-social behaviour | 22 | 20 | 13 |
| Other theft | 13 | 6 | 12 |
| Public order | 12 | 13 | 8 |
| Shoplifting | 14 | 18 | 8 |
| Vehicle crime | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Criminal damage and arson | 20 | 6 | 4 |
| Burglary | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Drugs | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Other crime | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Bicycle theft | 8 | 3 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Theft from the person | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| All reports | 179 | 155 | 100 |
The fall is mostly in violence and sexual offences, which dropped from 76 in July to 44. That category is always the largest in a town centre, so it moves the total most.
Police.uk maps each report to the nearest street or landmark. In August, the most common points were Market Square (8 reports) and a supermarket location (8 reports).
A year of change, category by category
To smooth out the monthly swings, we compared the 12 months to August 2026 with the 12 months before. Both periods use the same one-mile circle around Witney town centre.
| Type of crime | Sep 2024 to Aug 2025 | Sep 2025 to Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| All reports | 1,959 | 1,728 | down 12% |
| Violence and sexual offences | 852 | 708 | down 17% |
| Anti-social behaviour | 288 | 227 | down 21% |
| Shoplifting | 210 | 215 | up 2% |
| Public order | 155 | 167 | up 8% |
| Criminal damage and arson | 158 | 124 | down 22% |
| Other theft | 98 | 99 | level |
| Vehicle crime | 35 | 38 | up 9% |
| Burglary | 35 | 35 | level |
| Drugs | 38 | 24 | down 37% |
| Robbery | 14 | 22 | up 57% |
Most categories fell or held steady. The clear rise is robbery, from 14 to 22. Those are small numbers, so a handful of incidents moves the percentage a long way.
Shoplifting barely changed over the year. The quiet August, with 8 reports, followed 18 in July. Of the 8 August shoplifting reports, police.uk lists 6 as still under investigation and 2 as closed with no suspect identified.
Carterton: up 10% in a year
We ran the same check for a one-mile circle around Carterton town centre, about five miles west of Witney. The picture there is different.
Carterton’s recorded crime rose from 733 to 805 over the same two periods, up 10%. July and August 2026 each recorded 89 reports, the highest monthly figures in the two years of data.
The main movements were:
- criminal damage and arson up 41%, from 56 to 79
- public order up 29%, from 49 to 63
- other theft up from 34 to 44
- violence and sexual offences up 4%, from 353 to 368
Criminal damage peaked at 18 reports in May 2026, against a monthly norm of about five. Shoplifting in Carterton was level, at 68 in both years.
How to read these figures
- The counts are crimes reported to and recorded by police, not every crime committed. A change can reflect reporting or recording as well as offending.
- Police.uk places each report at an anonymised map point near where it happened, so a one-mile circle is approximate at its edges.
- Monthly totals can be revised when police update their records. A later download of August may not match these numbers exactly.
- Anti-social behaviour is recorded as an incident, not a crime, but police.uk counts it alongside crime, and so do we.
What it means for you
- Report anti-social behaviour and non-emergency crime to Thames Valley Police online or on 101. Call 999 if someone is in danger or a crime is happening now.
- Shops can report thefts online too. Thefts that never reach the police do not appear in these figures.
- Your own street’s figures, and your neighbourhood policing team, are on police.uk. Enter a postcode to see the map.
- Moving to the area? Our Witney house prices page covers what homes cost, street by street.
We will update these figures each month as police.uk publishes them.
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