POLICE chiefs appear to be winning the war against violent crime in Suffolk, with figures showing a slow-down for the first three months of the year.But Suffolk Constabulary failed to meet targets on the amount of time police officers spent on frontline duty.

By Danielle Nuttall

POLICE chiefs appear to be winning the war against violent crime in Suffolk, with figures showing a slow-down for the first three months of the year.

But Suffolk Constabulary failed to meet targets on the amount of time police officers spent on frontline duty.

The figures were revealed in a performance report covering April to June to be discussed at a meeting of Suffolk Police Authority on Friday.

It showed the number of violent crime offences rose by only 2.8% (81 offences), suggesting the force's crackdown in this area appears to be bearing fruit.

There were also only five more offences recorded compared to last year in the "more serious" violent offences category, with 1,054 crimes reported between April to June.

Meanwhile, the percentage of time spent on frontline policing is presently at 61.3%, which is below the target figure of 65%, according to the performance data.

This placed Suffolk second from bottom when compared to seven other forces of a similar size, including Warwickshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

Peter Worobec, temporary assistant chief constable, said last night: "Suffolk Constabulary has embraced the new Suffolk First For You campaign, which aims to give local people the best police service in the country.

"The new campaign, which follows the success of the Suffolk First initiative, is geared towards giving people a reliable, responsive local service that is visible and accessible and working with communities to identify local concerns, solve problems and bring offenders to justice.

"These latest figures show that the campaign has got off to an encouraging start.

"The percentage of people who think their local police do a good or excellent job stands at 60.9% in Suffolk – the highest nationally.

"And our work to improve the time it takes to answer calls is paying off, with more than 92% of emergency calls being answered within 10 seconds and more people expressing satisfaction with our response."

Mr Worobec added: "We are also encouraged that the increase in violent crime offences has slowed – reflecting our efforts, with our partners, to tackle this type of crime."

Suffolk still boasts one of the lowest burglary dwelling and vehicle crime rates in the country.

However, there were increases of 8% (39 offences) and 12.3% (141 offences) respectively between April and June.

But Mr Worobec said: "They follow significant reductions in these crime categories last year. The fact that an 8% increase in burglary dwelling equates to just 39 offences reflects our success in targeting this type of crime, not only last year when we achieved a 25% reduction, but in previous years too."

The total number of offences recorded between April and June stood at 13,870 which represents a 1.8% increase (251 offences) on the same period as last year.

The force's detection rate presently stands at 25.9%, which is above the target set by the police authority and an improvement on last year.