Crime across four Redbridge wards - Bridge, Church End, Monkhams and Roding - was down last year, according to the police.

Between February 2013 and January of this year, only burglaries in non-residential buildings (11.7pc), violence against the person (1.1pc) and business robbery (8pc) increased on the year before though.

The news was revealed by Sergeant Rob Douglas who presented the statistics to the Area Two Committee meeting on Tuesday night.

Personal robbery saw the biggest decrease with Redbridge Police investigating 66 incidents, compared to 123 from February 2012 to January 2013.

Monkhams ward enjoyed the biggest decline in total notifiable offences with 441 incidents being reported - a 23.7 per cent decrease on the previous year.

Church End ward had the second sharpest decline in crime with incidents down by 23.3 per cent.

Crime in Bridge ward, however, fell by only 8.2 per cent on the year before where 759 offences were notified by the police.