NEW Government figures have revealed that complaints upheld against Kent police more than doubled over the last year. The period of April 2000 to March 2001 saw 62 complaints substantiated compared to 26 the previous year.

The increase was twice as high as the average increase in upheld complaints against the 43 police forces in England and Wales. The total number of complaints received was down however, from 733 in 399 cases to 639 complaints in 344 cases this year.

Spokesman for Kent Police, Alistair Irvine, said: "The number of substantial complaints has gone up, you can't ignore that. Our professional standards department will analyse the figures in depth and anything that comes to light which may need reviewing, that will happen."

Mr Irvine said though the figures broadly reflected the 12-month period in question, some complaints upheld during that time dated back to 1998 and 1999. He stressed: "You do get some anomalies in some years."

Upheld complaints were prevalent in the two categories of neglect of duty and breach of code C, which deals with the treatment of prisoners in detention, he said.

Across the country, the number of substantiated complaints against the police rose by 26 per cent to 903, resulting in the highest number of substantiated complaints against the police since 1987.