Violent offences continue to rise despite fall in overall crime rates

Violent crime is still rising, though overall crime rates have fallen by almost 3% in the year to the end of March, according to figures released by the Home Office yesterday.

The survey was put together as a snapshot and included details from 29 of 43 forces in England and Wales. The figures, which were announced by the home secretary, Jack Straw during a speech to the Association of Chief Police Officers annual conference, were not broken down into categories of crime.

Mr Straw conceded that while crime overall seemed to have fallen by 2.7%, violent crime - which includes mur ders and assaults - was still on the increase. The official figures for all forces will be published in July.

Following Mr Straw's speech, many of the forces that contributed to the survey admitted violent crime was still rising sharply. Staffordshire recorded a 27% increase in the 12 months to the end of March, though the chief constable, John Giffard, blamed changes in counting methods for distorting the statistics.

Dorset's rate rose by 14% and Avon and Somerset's went up by 17%. Violent crime in Cumbria fell by 19%.

Mr Straw was given a warm welcome by Acpo delegates, in contrast to the mauling he received at the Police Federation conference in Blackpool last week, where he was heckled, slow handclapped and then berated for suggesting the protesters were the worse for wear.

Yesterday, he touched on several police-friendly issues that were unlikely to provoke an audience that included some of the country's most senior officers.

Mr Straw said forces had achieved "tremendous results" in recent years tackling burglary and car crime, and insisted that it was time to "put victims back where they belong, at the heart of the criminal justice system".

He also promised to give more cash to courts to expand the number of sitting days, and to change the rules governing the admissibility of ev idence in criminal trials to prevent cases getting "bogged down in lengthy and arcane arguments about legal process".

"We have to learn to trust the good sense of judges and juries once again so that our criminal process returns to what it should be, a true test of guilt and innocence, with the test for evidence being its relevance."

• Mr Straw said he would consider "very carefully" any demands for a public inquiry into the death of James Ashley, 39, who was shot dead by a Sussex police marksman during a botched raid at his flat. But he refused to be drawn on whether the chief constable of Sussex, Paul Whitehouse, should resign.