CRIME in North Yorkshire increased by more than six per cent last month, but reports of antisocial behaviour have fallen.

The Police and Crime corporate performance and scrutiny board this week heard that 15,843 crimes had been recorded in August - up 6.5 per cent on the same period last year, while violent offences were up 17.4 per cent, with 2,040 reported last month, 303 more than the same period last year.

A submitted report said a number of burglaries were reported in August where access was gained through insecure windows or doors, likely to have been left open due to the warm weather.

It said: “Summer represents a period of increased demand in comparison to other times of the year and operational plans are in place to respond.

“North Yorkshire Police is currently seeing low volumes of thefts, and non dwelling burglaries, and command areas have reported several notable arrests.” However, reports of antisocial behaviour were down 5.5 per cent on last year’s figure to 13,943, and public confidence in the force had risen to 83 per cent, up seven per cent.

This year’s conviction rates for domestic abuse (79 per cent) were higher than the targets set by the CPS (75 per cent).

Police and Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan suggested publishing the number of reports alongside the number of convictions could encourage more victims to come forward, and welcomed an increase in self referral of those experiencing domestic abuse to Supporting Victims.

“I think there’s some really good work here that’s been done, particularly around the conviction rates for domestic abuse which have been very high and very successful. But I think this chart masks the real problem, which is reporting.

“We’ve got very low rates per head of population in the stats for domestic abuse. I question whether that is really the case or whether there are other things going on in our communities which make it difficult for people to report, so through other channels we’re looking at those types of issues.”

Conviction rates for hate crime based on race or religion, were higher than the national average (88 per cent compared to 83.7 per cent)., though homophobic and transphobic hate crime convictions were below the national average (73.7 per cent compared to 82.7 per cent)