Police were attacked last night for releasing a series of crime statistics which are wrong.

Shadow Home Affairs Minister Michael Dunkley said he was concerned that the inaccurate third quarter figures had been issued by the Police at a press conference on Tuesday.

Total third quarter figures for crimes of violence in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1998 were wrongly calculated, giving the misleading impression that there were more offences in those years.

Mr. Dunkley told The Royal Gazette last night: "I am most concerned that as a shadow minister I got these figures a day late and these wrong figures have been released.

"I hope it is just a miscalculation, but these figures are normally done in the computer. But it leads me to doubt these statistics because it looks like a good trend in reducing violence.

"I've had people tell me from time to time that some people won't report crime so they feel the numbers are not correct, but when these are the published numbers Police Media Relations are putting out, you have to wonder if they have any meaning at all.'' The figures released -- which are calculated manually and by computer -- showed total crimes of violence for the third quarter of 1996 had been incorrectly added up as 101 instead of 88. 1997 was listed as 71 instead of 57, 1998 as 65 rather than 55, and 1999 was listed as 78 rather than 68.

Mr. Dunkley said the true figures showed a steady trend of decreasing crimes of violence under the UBP from 88 in the third quarter of 1996 to 57 the following year and 55 in 1998, when the Progressive Labour Party was voted into office.

The figure for the quarter jumped up to 68 in 1999, then fell by one incident to 67 in the third quarter this year.

He said he had called for more Police officers in 1999 to combat the chronic staffing shortage, but the PLP had failed to act.

"You can throw out 1999 because the PLP couldn't get off the stick to get the manpower to the levels they should be at because, as (PLP backbencher) Wayne Perinchief said, they let the criminals have their day,'' said Mr. Dunkley.

Police Media Relations spokeswoman Evelyn-James Barnett last night added: "There are several inaccurate tallies reflected in the year-over-year third quarter violent crime totals.

"The error appears to be transpositional in nature and is confined to just that sub-category. We regret the error and are investigating.''