CRIME has risen in York and Selby for the first time in six years as police time is occupied by a series of major incidents.

Figures for April to October this year, compared with the same period last year, show that crime overall has gone up by 10.9 per cent, despite North Yorkshire Police setting a target to reduce incidents by two per cent.

Burglary has risen by 13.2 per cent, violent crime is up by 11 per cent and vehicle crime has risen by 13.9 per cent. In contrast, the number of arrests in connection with class A drugs was down by 11 cases.

Last night, Superintendent John Lacy told a meeting of the Community and Police Groups of Selby and York that the force would get itself back on track after an exceptional year which saw police resources stretched by the aftermath of the floods, the riots in Bradford and Burnley, the Selby rail disaster, foot and mouth disease, three murder inquiries and the shockwaves from the September 11 terrorist atrocities in New York.

He said that while the majority of serious crimes in the force area were detected, uniformed officers were being forced off the streets, leading to an increase in crimes such as burglary, vehicle crime and violent incidents.

He said: "I make no apology for crime rising because the demand on us has been tremendous this year.

"We will return, we will get through this bad patch, we will get all our officers trained and we will return."

Supt Lacy said that North Yorkshire Police officers were recruited to help during the riots in Bradford and Burnley and family liaison officers are still working with the bereaved from the rail crash.

He said there have been 37 rapes and serious sexual assaults, which is an extraordinarily high number, and because of these and other serious incidents, 1,238 detective days have been lost.

That, he said, was having a knock-on effect where uniformed officers had to be taken off the streets to deal with the backlog.

The force's crime detection rate has also taken a battering, falling from 28 per cent to 22.2 per cent.

But Supt Lacy said initiatives such as the new drug squad launched on October 1 were already having an impact and police numbers have also been given a boost with new officers currently being trained.

He said many of the force's crime reduction targets were achievable, but he was not confident that violent crime could be brought below the targets.

Updated: 11:53 Wednesday, November 28, 2001