THE reveller in the tuxedo staggered on to the cobbles of North Bailey after a student ball. As he mingled with late-night drinkers spilling out of Durham City's heaving pubs, he had clearly failed to read the section in the university's handbook on 'not drawing attention to yourself.'

"Come on you poor!" he bellowed, invitingly, to no one in particular.

The well-spoken young man escaped a pasting probably only because no one could quite believe he actually said something so crass.

Acts of lunacy like that make students at St Hild and St Bede College cringe.

As does a recent report in the university's newspaper, The Palatinate, describing how two male students were attacked by a group of locals after the students had imitated the noises the men had made as they walked past.

"This may have acted as provocation to the assault that followed," said the report, with understatement.

Kitty Donaldson, a 21-year-old politics and philosophy student, in her third year, reckons most undergraduates - a few foolhardy exceptions aside - strive to blend in. She has good reason to be careful - she has been attacked twice during her time in Durham.

"I never talk on my mobile phone around town - that would be red rag to a bull," she said.

"I also tend to walk with my head down so as not to draw attention to myself."

While the level of danger in Durham City is statistically minimal compared to the capital, it is more noticable due to Durham's size.

The university has a population of about 9,000 students, who make up about 15 per cent of the population.

And yet, police figures for last year showed that only 16 of the 200 assaults in the city were on students.

Det Supt Eric Suddes, who has policed the city for the best part of ten years, points out that recorded crime figures do not change in the summer when students desert the city.

"Although what happened to Patrick Brown is very tragic, it is a fairly isolated incident," said the officer. "There is no indication that students are victims of violent crime more than anyone else."

This makes the claim by students at St Hild and St Bede, that police have advised them to stay out of town at weekends, puzzling.

Neil Withers, 23, who is doing a chemistry PhD, added: "The city is kind of ours in the week but theirs during the weekend. That has been the way since I came here six years ago, and probably since time began.

"As soon as you arrive at university you hear by word-of-mouth that you don't go out at weekends."

So, while the facts may dispel images of locals spoiling for a fight descending from former pit villages to hunt for victims from the Home Counties, that does not mean there is not a real - if unjustified - fear among students.

Perceived wisdom suggests the problem has always been exaggerated by a Press hungry for stories.

But, according to Dr Joan Harvey, lecturer in psychology at Newcastle University, as long as there are haves and have-nots, there will always be tensions.

"It is not the posh accents or different clothes of the student that townsfolk - who often include people from deprived backgrounds - resent," she said. "It is the fact that they look like they control their own lives."