VIOLENT crime soared by 47 per cent in Lancashire last year -- but residents are being told: Don't panic!

Senior officers said the entire increase was due to applying government criteria which meant minor incidents, never before recorded, had to be classified as crimes.

Burglaries, vehicle crime and robberies all fell by more than five per cent across the county in 2003, although the 8,585 extra violent crimes contributed to a 12 per cent rise in crime overall.

In the Eastern Division, covering Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, burglary was at its lowest level for years, which police said was thanks to the targeting of prolific offenders.

But for violent crime police have moved to explain how bureaucracy -- and not rising crime -- was the cause.

The force had to improve its recording practices after being criticised by the Audit Commission last spring for failing to correctly log violent crime.

Police must comply with the National Crime Recording Standard to enable meaningful comparisons with different forces.

Det Chief Supt Mike Barton said: "The audit showed there was confusion over some of the minor incidents where, for example, no injuries were suffered by the victim and one off cases of harassments.

"We immediately put an action plan into place. In the space of five months the number of recorded violent crimes more than doubled.

"Since the audit we have had considerable success in recording a great deal of low-level violence and offences that involve little or no serious physical injury, such as a minor scuffle."

To prove his point, Mr Barton revealed there had been no increase in the number of violent incidents reported by the public and no increase in the number of people attending hospital casualty departments with injuries from assaults.

It was simply that the 8,500 extra violent crimes had been moved from a non-crime classification to violent crime, he added.

Mr Barton said his statisticians had told him that if the old recording practices were applied to the 2003 figures, violent crime had either risen or fallen by two per cent.

Supt Warren Turner, operations manager at Eastern Division spoke of his delight at the reductions in burglary and vehicle crime.

He said: "We are totally committed to reducing crime across Eastern Division and have high-profile targeting operations in place to do just that.

"We don't want to just make Eastern Division a safer place - we want to make the public feel safer too.

"Our combined approach of targeting those who are responsible for committing crime, as well as focusing on community policing with the introduction of community beat managers and community support officers, is working.

"We will continue to build on these successes and not become complacent."