A SENIOR police officer has admitted crime figures were skewed because incidents reported to community police officers were not officially recorded.

Insp Chris Wood made the admission after the borough’s councillors expressed concerns residents were ringing the wrong number to report crimes.

Councillors told him residents had been mistakenly ringing a community support officer’s mobile to report antisocial behaviour and other incidents, instead of the 101 non-emergency police line.

Mr Wood admitted those calls going to PCSOs were not logged as official crimes leading to several being unrecorded – blurring the figures.

He said all community officers were being told to record all incidents reported on the mobiles.

He added: “The problem has been resolved.”

The admission came at an overview and scrutiny meeting where councillors disputed a report by the Castle Point Community Safety Partnership, which claimed the borough achieved the highest reduction in crime in the whole of Essex last year.

The report said that all crime in the 2010/11 financial year had fallen by 12 per cent since 2009, and that ten per cent more residents said they felt safe after dark.

Dave Blackwell, chairman of the committee, said: “Claims that anti-social behaviour in the borough has reduced is absolute rubbish.

“The fact is we are not getting a true reflection of the borough’s crime figures.

“If every single person had their incident properly recorded in the next few weeks, the figures would change dramatically.”

Lee Barrett, of the Canvey Indepen- dent Party, said the way crimes should be reported was confusing for residents who were given mobile phone numbers, the 101 number and the out of Essex non-emergency number.

The councillor for Canvey Island East, said: “Part of the problem for residents is that they do not know which number to ring when incidents are not an emergency.

“People do not want to ring the wrong number and waste police time, and having multiple police numbers just adds to the confusion.”