Leatherhead has much more recorded crime than the rest of Mole Valley. Its rate is almost double the district's. Anti-social behaviour and public order offences run above the national mix. Most other categories are close to normal. It is a busy town in a district of villages, and the crime figures reflect that.
Police.uk records 1,754 crimes in Leatherhead in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 126 per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 89% above the Mole Valley average for the same twelve months.
The rest of Mole Valley runs at about 67 crimes per 1,000 residents. Leatherhead's 126 is set against a district whose other places are mostly Downs, commons and spring-line villages. The district average is low, but Leatherhead's figure would be high against most averages.
The town itself is fairly dense for Surrey, at an average of about 3,200 people per square kilometre across its neighbourhoods. Unemployment was about 3% and overcrowding about 4% at the 2021 census. That describes a working town with jobs and reasonable housing. Those figures say nothing about why the crime rate is what it is, and none of them should be read as the cause.
By category, violence and sexual offences make up 32% of Leatherhead's recorded crime, against 35% across England and Wales. The category covers everything from common assault without injury upwards and is the largest almost everywhere, so Leatherhead's share is slightly below normal. Anti-social behaviour is 19% against 16% nationally, and public order offences 10% against 7%. Those two are where Leatherhead stands out. Shoplifting at 8%, criminal damage and arson at 7% and other theft at 7% all match the national shares almost exactly. The excess is noise and nuisance in public, which explains the figure without making it any more pleasant to live next to. The police.uk street map shows where incidents are recorded month by month, and an evening spent on the streets around a shortlisted address will tell a buyer more than the town total.
In Tudor times the vestry of the parish church appointed Leatherhead's constable and kept a lock-up. Today Surrey Police covers the whole county and charges a suspect in about 11% of its cases, against about 12% nationally, over the year to May 2026. About 36% of its cases close with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures for the whole of Surrey. They tell a victim how likely a charge is, and nothing about how safe any Leatherhead street is.
Safety is Leatherhead's weakest point. Its recorded crime is far above the rest of the district and above what a town this comfortable would lead anyone to expect, and the excess is concentrated in anti-social behaviour and public order offences.