POLICE chiefs insist that residents in the county shouldn’t be alarmed by soaring violent crime blaming an increased reporting culture for the increase.

Home Office figures just released show an 18.9 per cent increase in violent offences recorded in the county from July to September last year compared with the same period in 2004.

Kent Police say the majority of reported offences involve minor injuries such as cuts, scratches or a black eye, or involve offences such as harassment.

In many of the cases police say the offender is already known to the victim with alcohol or drugs playing a significant part in many assaults.

Kent Police says it still takes all these offences seriously and works with vulnerable groups to encourage them to report crime.

They see this as the reason for a rise in reported sexual offences in the county, which are up by 70, or 14.5 per cent, and domestic violence, which is included in the overall violence figures.

In total, reported crime in Kent has increased by 9.5 per cent.

At the same time, the police detection rate, which measures how many investigations lead to offenders being charged, cautioned, dealt with through fixed penalties or having offences taken into consideration, has increased by 27 per cent on the same period last year, with 8,695 investigations successfully “detected”.

Burglary rates fell, with only 2.7 households in 1,000 being broken into – equivalent to 20 of the county’s 646,000 homes being burgled every day.

Kent Assistant Chief Constable David Ainsworth said: “My message to the public is: 'Please don’t be alarmed at these figures.’ People in Kent still live in one of the safest parts of the country.

“We have been working with communities to find out their concerns and encourage them to report problems to us.

“Our improved understanding of patterns of crime and nuisance behaviour in Kent means we are able to act – and this is what we are doing. Our campaign to drive down crime over Christmas and the new year resulted in 7,524 arrests.

“We do not intend to let up, so if you are a criminal in Kent, be warned.”