THE latest crime figures show a 40 per cent increase in violent offences in the town last year.

But there is no need to nail our doors shut and lay mantraps at strategic points along the garden path because, according to the Home Office, the leap in numbers has come about as a result of a change in the way they are calculated rather than acute pandemic thuggery.

It would be nice if the number-crunchers could prove their claim by showing us how the figures would look if they were calculated in the old way, but they should perhaps be given the benefit of the doubt. Increases in violent crime along these lines simply do not happen in a single year.

A total of 44,000 crimes were committed in Wiltshire in the assessment period, and it is right to point out that this is one of the lowest rates in the South West.

But it is no cause for complacency. Every one of those crimes represents a blight on the life of an individual victim or the community at large.

It is the duty of us all to do everything we can to make sure perpetrators are brought to justice.