A POLICE force says an investigation into a former detention centre for young people is largely responsible for a staggering 185 per cent rise in recorded sexual offences.

The England and Wales Crime Survey - released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - showed 1,025 such crimes within the Durham police force area in the 12 months to June this year.

This was up 185 per cent on the previous year to June 2013. Across the North-East as a whole sexual offences rose 57 per cent to 2,894.

Other categories showing significant increases included violent crime resulting in injury (14 per cent) and cycle theft, up ten per cent in the North-East.

Nationally, rape crimes are at their highest level, increasing 29 per cent to 21,116 incidents, which analysts believe is partly down to the effect of the Yewtree investigation into Jimmy Savile and others.

Meanwhile, there were 7.1m incidents of crime against households and adults in England and Wales, a 16 per cent fall from 8.4m the previous year.

Gillian Porter, head of performance at Durham Police, said: “While any rise in crime is obviously disappointing, to a large extent this figure can be explained by the hundreds of historic offences of sexual and physical abuse at the former Medomsley Detention Centre (near Consett), which are subject to an ongoing criminal investigation.

“The offences took place between the 1960s and 1908s, but as the current investigation only began last August they show up on the recorded crime figures released today by the ONS.

“It should also be remembered that for several years we have seen crime fall, so even though there has been an increase in certain categories the actual number of offences remains low, especially in comparison to many other areas.”

Durham experienced an overall 12 per cent in recorded crime, including fraud, to 33,570, however it decreased by two per cent in Cleveland (38,550) and by one per cent in Northumbria (68,807). There was no change in North Yorkshire which had 34,821 recorded crimes.

Cleveland’s Assistant Chief Constable Simon Nickless said: “We are fully committed to keeping our communities safe and supporting victims of crime.

“As with other forces we continue to review our data to see if there are any further issues that need to be addressed.”

Julia Mulligan, North Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner said the county was still one of the safest in England.

She said: “We need to ensure that we do not fall into the trap of chasing crime figures and have protecting vulnerable people and providing good services suffer.”