CRIME rates are continuing to fall across the region despite a rise in sex offences.
New figures show a 13 per cent drop in recorded crime in the North-East for the 12 months to last September, compared to the previous year.
In North Yorkshire, there was a ten per cent fall during the same period. In total, 209,516 crimes were recorded in the region over the 12 months, the British Crime Survey found.
Sexual offences caused one of the few blips in the figures, rising by eight per cent in the North- East and four per cent in North Yorkshire. Durham saw the biggest fall in recorded crime with a drop of 16 per cent.
A spokeswoman for Durham Police said: “We are proud crime continues to fall in County Durham and Darlington, making Durham Police one of the bestperforming forces in the country.
This is despite the constraints of the financial climate, a freeze on police officer recruitment and a programme of compulsory redundancies for police staff.”
In North Yorkshire, there was a 25 per cent reduction in vehicle crime, a 22 per cent fall in criminal damage and an eight per cent drop in drug offences.
North Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell said: “Our intelligence and demand-led approach to policing is working extremely well.
“We are able to target resources in the right place at the right time. This enables us to tackle instances of crime and anti-social behaviour head-on and bring offenders to justice quickly.”
In Cleveland, burglaries were down by 16 per cent and robberies dropped by 17 per cent.
Chief Constable of Cleveland Police Sean Price said crime continued to be the lowest ever recorded in the district, adding: “These figures from the Home Office show that we are once again performing well above the national average and are continuing to reduce crime in key areas.”
The survey found 29 per cent of those living in the North-East thought that that drug use or drug dealing was a big problem in their community. However, only 19 per cent of North Yorkshire residents thought it was an issue.
Sixty one per cent of North-East people believed that the police dealt with local issues, compared to 58 per cent in North Yorkshire
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