October 24, 2008	Friday	Shawwal 24, 1429

LONDON, Oct 23: The most serious violent crimes have rocketed by 22 per cent, according to the latest government figures released on Thursday, after ministers admitted that some police forces have been wrongly recording offences.

While violent crime overall fell 7 per cent between April and June compared with last year, the number of serious offences, which include murder and attempted murder, shot up.

This was a “result of a clarification in counting rules” by 13 forces that had put some offences, most notably incidents of grievous bodily harm with intent, in less serious categories.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the problem had been discovered as ministers turned their focus to dealing with public concern over knife crime.

“This isn’t crime that wasn’t being recorded or reported ...it just wasn’t being recorded in the category of most serious violence,” Smith said.

“I wanted to focus on particularly most serious violence and therefore we needed to be sure that everybody was categorising it in the same way so we’d be able to track whether all the things we’re putting into place are making a difference.”—Reuters