POLICE have shelled out more than £209,000 on repairs to vehicles after crashes and vandal attacks.

The cash covered repairs to patrol cars and damages to other vehicles in 2006.

North Yorkshire Police forked out £104,447 on repairs to its own fleet vehicles, but the force also spent a further £104,810 on damages to other people who had been involved in collisions with their vehicles.

And £24,887 was paid out in legal costs to third parties involved in crashes with police cars.

According to a report by the force's fleet manager, Simon Binks, there were 480 motor incidents in which police vehicles were damaged in 2006.

A "motor incident" is defined as anything which results in damage to a police car, van or motorbike - regardless of who was to blame or what caused it.

The central area, which includes York and Selby, owns 85 police vehicles and there were 89 incidents in which they were damaged.

In the western area, which owns 105 vehicles, there were 97, but the worst place for car crashes was the eastern area - where there were 107 vehicles but 188 cases of damage.

Police lost the equivalent of 383 days while the vehicles were out of use, or £6,170 while they were off the roads being repaired.

The report reveals that during 2006, there were 153 crashes which involved a single police vehicle and no other motorists.

There were 122 crashes between two vehicles, at least one of which involved a police car.

Police vehicles were also involved in nine three-car pile-ups, three four-vehicle crashes and one five-vehicle smash.

The force had to replace or repair 38 windscreens and there were 20 incidents of criminal damage against patrol cars.

In a further 116 cases, officers returned to a car to find it had been damaged. The Press told last year how Chief Constable Della Cannings had urged officers to drive more carefully in a bid to cut the amount of damage done to fleet vehicles.

She said officers were partly to blame for the large bill and appealed to them to help drive down the cost of repairs to police vehicles by taking more care on the county's roads. The force's fleet of 503 vehicles covered an estimated 9.7 million miles during 2006.


Jail sentences for robbery falls to lowest level for 9 years

The average jail sentence for robbery has fallen to its lowest level since 1998, official Home Office figures show.

Robbers were given 35 months in jail on average in 2005, compared with 38.4 in the previous year.

Sentencing statistics also revealed the overall number of people jailed in England and Wales also fell to its lowest level for seven years.

There were 101,200 offenders imprisoned compared with 106,300 in the previous year.

Jail sentences for violence against the person fell by a full month to 17.8 months, compared with an average of 18.8 in both of the previous two years.

There were also shorter jail terms handed out for criminal damage (15.1 months on average, down from 16.7) and drug offences (down to 35.8 months from 37.3). However, sentences for sexual offences and forgery showed a rise.

The average sentence for robbery was more than four months shorter than the average sentence handed out for the crime in 2003, when it peaked at 39.3 months. The number of fines imposed by the courts also fell during the year. Following a peak of 1,082,700 in 2004, the overall number fell by five per cent to 1,025,100.