A CRACKDOWN on crime in the run-up to Christmas across County Durham and Darlington led to 271 arrests and the recovery of £57,000 worth of property.

The 18-day Operation Bulls-eye involved hundreds of frontline beat bobbies, traffic officers and detectives making life more difficult for the criminal fraternity across the county.

House burglars, drug dealers, thieves and those involved in town centre violence and disorder were targeted after information on individual criminals and their patterns of behaviour was collected before the start of the operation.

The search of more than 160 premises lead to the recovery of the majority of the property and a further 20 people were reported for alleged involvement in minor crimes.

Each of Durham Constabulary's six divisions implemented their own action plans to tackle locally identified problems, with drug dealing and drug related offences high on the agenda.

Additionally Derwentside devised tactics to combat the threat of post office robberies, tea-time burglars and town centre disorder.

Chester le Street and Durham gave top priority to tackling violent crime and Wear and Tees division concentrated on car thieves.

Darlington and Sedgefield paid particular attention to shoplifters and in Easington extra effort was put into disrupting the activities of drugs suppliers and raising awareness of the dangers of drugs.

The force's head of CID, Det Supt Ian Scott, said: "Between April and November of this year recorded crime across the force fell again, this time from 32,676 to 29,619.

"The achievements of Operation Bull's-eye during December have done much to build on the undoubted successes of the previous eight months."