VICTIMS in North Yorkshire need more say in how police deal with offenders, after almost half of crimes were dealt with outside the courts.

A new report into the use of how North Yorkshire Police use Out of Court Disposals (OCDs) - which lets officers deal with lower level offending without troubling the courts - showed four in ten crimes did not reach the courts.

Following concern for the increase in use, Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan set up the Out of Court Disposal Scrutiny Panel in 2014, chaired by Harrogate solicitor Jonathan Mortimer.

In the panel's first annual report, it said the OCDs were mostly being used appropriately, but there was room for improvement and they "should not be used as an easy time-saving response to crime".

Mr Mortimer said: "Their use must be proportionate and take into account the views of the victim. From what I and the panel have seen from our work in the last 12 months, I believe that the public should have confidence that the system is being used appropriately by North Yorkshire Police.

"We have found some room for improvement, particularly as far as the victim is concerned, but it is clear that on the whole the system is being used correctly to deal with low-level offending."

Mrs Mulligan said: "I am reassured that North Yorkshire Police are generally using OCDs appropriately, but it does seem that more could be being done to ensure the views of the victim of any incident are better taken into account and I want to see that feedback put into practice."

The panel reviewed 66 cases that involved OCDs, and found the views of victims were not adequately taken into account in just over nine per cent of cases, the penalty was not appropriate in just over eight per cent of cases, and in just less than four per cent of cases (3.84 per cent), the police officer gave the OCDs contrary to national guidelines.