Benjamin Disraeli said there are lies, damned lies and statistics. A case in point is the use of selected statistics by Police & Crime Commissioner Julia Mulligan to try to justify her assertion that North Yorkshire Police are cutting rural crime.

‘Fall in rural crime across North Yorkshire welcome’ is the headline of an article in The Press (August 8). Mrs Mulligan then goes on to use the flimsiest of evidence - a reduction in the total cost of claims made to just one insurance company - to imply rural crime decreased in 2017.

The assertion is of course fundamentally flawed. It is patently obvious, in view of the varying cost of stolen plant, vehicles and equipment, that the total monetary value of insurance claims bears no relationship to the number of victims of rural crime.

Assistant Chief Constable Amanda Oliver compounds the matter by using the same flawed logic to claim significant progress in the reduction of rural crime, without providing one shred of statistical proof.

Come on Mrs Mulligan, I thought you would do better than to try to use smoke and mirrors in trying to boast about your accomplishments.

Unsuccessful attempts have been made before to obtain from your office comparative year-on-year statistics that follow Home Office classifications of crime. The least you can do is to reveal them if you wish to rely on them as indicators of your performance.

Allan Charlesworth

Old Earswick