JUST 70 votes separated the top two candidates in Suffolk’s first police election – but only one in six voters took part in yesterday’s elections.

And in Essex the figure was even lower – less than one in seven took part in the election.

The turnout figure in Suffolk was confirmed as 16.01% – 88,497 of the county’s 552,780 voters bothered to take part in the election.

In Essex the turnout across the county was 13.06% – 171,617 out of the county’s 1,313,745 took part in the election.

In Suffolk the first round votes were:

Jane Basham(Lab) - 29,868

David Cocks(Ind) - 14,224

Bill Mountford (UKIP) - 11,278

Tim Passmore (Con)- 29,798.

Jane Basham and Tim Passmore have gone through to the second round, with the other two candidates’ second choice votes being allocated to them.