by MATTHEW HICKLEY, Daily Mail

Violent crime rose sharply last year for the fourth year running, figures reveal today.

Police recorded big increases in violent assaults and sexual offences in the year to March, including a 27 per cent rise in rapes against women.

The findings across England and Wales are a blow to Home Secretary David Blunkett - especially after similar significant rises in violence since 1999. They will undermine his claim, based on the slight fall in overall offences, to be winning the war on crime.

Yesterday, the Government insisted much of the apparent increase in violent crime is due to changes in the way police are now ordered to gather and record data, skewing this year's official recorded figures.

But it was acknowledged that, even adjusting the figures to allow for that statistical glitch, violent offences were still up significantly on last year.

Opposition critics warned that the increasingly complicated maze of statistics is making annual crime figures meaningless to ordinary people.

The Home Office presented a headline figure for the overall crime fall as just two per cent year-on-year.

That is based not on police data, but on the British Crime Survey - also published yesterday - drawn from questionnaires of 40,000 households.

By contrast, police figures showed a seven per cent rise in crime - up to 5.89million offences. But, after "adjustment" to allow for new counting rules, that becomes a three per cent fall.

New crime reporting rules

The new National Crime Reporting Standard means hundreds of thousands of previously "invisible" crimes now show up in the figures.

For example, if a vandal damages a row of cars, police must now record each car as a separate case of criminal damage.

The new police figures show a 28 per cent rise in violence against the person offences, and a 22 per cent rise in overall violence, including robbery and sex crimes.

The Home Office insists the real "adjusted" figures show more modest, though still deeply troubling, rises of five per cent and two per cent respectively.

Mr Blunkett preferred yesterday to concentrate on more positive results - particularly a 14 per cent drop in robberies.

Crime 'slightly falling'

Even the Home Office's head of statistical research, Professor Paul Wiles, admitted it is "a difficult year" to interpret crime statistics, with neither a large fall nor a large rise in overall offending.

He said: "The general picture is one of slightly falling crime, although it is not falling as steeply as in recent years.

"The downward trend is slowing. This is still the most sustained period in which crime has not increased in half a century."

The Home Office played down the rise in recorded violent crime, claiming the new counting rules had a particular impact on low-level violence such as common assault, where no injury is caused.

More violent crimes increase

However, more serious violent crimes - including grievous bodily harm and threats or conspiracy to murder - increased 18 per cent.

Police figures showed a 27 per cent rise in rapes against women and 17 per cent against men.

Homicide offences rose by 18 per cent to 1,048, but officials claim this is entirely due to the Harold Shipman case.

The 2002-2003 murder figures include 172 of his earlier killings which came to light last year. If they are discounted, the trend is slightly downwards.

Drug offences recorded rose by 16 per cent to 141,116, including a 17 per cent rise in possession and trafficking up by 14 per cent.

The proportion of crimes solved by police stayed at an historic low last year, at just below 24 per cent.

Yesterday, Mr Blunkett said he is "encouraged" by the figures, and said the risk of being a crime victim has fallen from 40 per cent in 1995 to 27 per cent - "its lowest level for more than 20 years".

Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin said: "The rise in violent crime is extremely worrying. The Government's range of initiatives and vast bureaucracy just aren't making any significant impact."