CRIME rose across all four police force areas in Wales last year - with Dyfed-Powys Police once again registering the smallest increase.

The average number of recorded crimes in Wales rose by 10% with spikes in harassment and sex offences, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Dyfed-Powys had the lowest increase with overall crime going up by 3% - while Gwent had the highest increase at 14%.

In South Wales the rise was 11% and in North Wales 7%. There were about 209,000 crimes recorded across Wales in the year ending June 2017.

The figures also showed Dyfed-Powys Police had the lowest rate of crime per capita of any other police force in the whole of England and Wales - 43 reported crimes per 1,000 people.

Across Wales the number of recorded stalking and harassment offences increased by 37%, sexual offences were up 24% with violence against the person offences going up by 18%

Violent crime was up 18% and robbery also rose by 18%

However, offences involving death or serious injury caused by illegal driving fell by 43%.

Almost half of the recorded crimes in Wales - or around 101,000 - were in the South Wales Police force area, with 43,000 in Gwent, 42,000 in North Wales, and 22,000 in Dyfed-Powys.

Violent crime and robbery is on the rise, figures suggest

The ONS said improvements in recording crime remain a factor in the rise, but they also suggest police were dealing with a growing number of offences.

Police-recorded offences are one of two official sources used to analyse trends in crime.

The other is the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which gave an estimated total of 10.8 million incidents of crime in the year to the end of June.

This figure includes experimental data on fraud and computer misuse offences, and annual comparisons will not be available until January.