REPORTS of race attacks in a North-East town have gone up by 300 per cent in the past three years, it was revealed last night.

About two per cent of Darlington's population belong to ethnic minorities, the highest concentration in County Durham.

But the relatively small size of the black community makes it vulnerable to racial attacks and abuse.

Andy Errington, head of Darlington's youth offending and community safety service, said that following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, steps had been taken to encourage black people to report racially-motivated incidents.

He said: "Since then, the amount of race-related reports to police in the town have increased by about 300 per cent."

Darlington Borough Council this week approved plans to spend £38,600 on a community safety advisor for young black people in the town.

A report by Paul Wildsmith, director of corporate services, said the community safety advisor would liaise with different ethnic minority groups to determine their community safety issues and map their needs.

The worker would focus on ethnic minority young people within the community, and their views of crime and disorder.

Helen Atwell, of Darlington Racial Equality Council, said the figures of race-related reports to police had increased from about 30 three years ago to 178 last year.

She said: "I would attribute the rise to more awareness on the part of the police that crimes are now being recognised as racially motivated.

"It is also due to increased trust in the police from the minority community. I don't think the amount of racial incidents have increased.

"We surveyed 100 ethnic minority people locally, and 88 per cent of them said they had been subject to some sort of racial criminal behaviour."