The 18 police forces accused of having under-reported the amount of serious violent crime have been named.

The UK's largest force, the Metropolitan Police, Thames Valley Police, North Yorkshire and North Wales are among the constabularies that may have been misreporting the figures for more than 10 years, according to the BBC.

Other forces include Essex, Hertfordshire, Humberside, Kent and Lancashire.

The list was obtained through a Freedom of Information request, the corporation said.

The undercounting came to light last October when quarterly crime figures for the 43 forces in England and Wales were published.

It saw the number of serious violent crimes jump by 22 per cent on the previous year.

A handful of the constabularies involved in the errors were named at the time, but the identities of all 18 were not revealed.

The BBC said the full list comprised the Metropolitan Police and Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cleveland, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Humberside, Kent, Lancashire, Norfolk, North Wales, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Thames Valley forces.

New Home Office guidance on how to classify crime was provided in April last year.

It emerged that a senior Kent officer subsequently wrote to the Home Office to "express concern" at changes to the way crime figures were recorded and reported.