THE crime figures may not show it but Fife's top cop says the streets are "perhaps a lot safer than they used to be".

Chief superintendent Derek McEwan also explained why he was "heartened" to see more people reporting domestic abuse and sexual offences.

There was a 10 per cent rise in crime in the region between April and December 2022, compared to the same period the previous year, with just under 12,000 offences.

Mr McEwan, the divisional commander for Fife, said: “The streets are perhaps a lot safer than they used to be but if you just concentrate on the crime figures you could easily form a perception that perhaps they’re not."

On the plus side drug offences fell by a whopping 35 per cent, there were fewer people caught for being drunk and disorderly and a drop in fire-raising, although crimes involving robbery, threats and extortion, domestic abuse, housebreaking, common theft and fraud all went up.

And there was a huge rise in shoplifting, up 55 per cent to more than 2,000 offences.

The statistics show welcome reductions in attempted murders, serious assault, rape – including attempts – indecent and sexual assaults, but overall, sex offences and crimes of violence increased from the same nine months in 2021.  

Mr McEwan said: “(Fife police has) one of the highest detection rates in Scotland for both domestic and sexual offending.  

“We’re all aware that domestic abuse and sexual offending exists within our communities so I am heartened at times when we do have a higher level of reporting." 

The chief said his division has one of the largest public protection units in Scotland, and the team takes a proactive approach.

He continued: “We go out and approach all ex-partners of a suspect that we can identify.

"This method tends to generate a significant number of charges and ultimately gets significant jail sentences on the back of it.

“You tend to find that in serial domestic abusers there’s very similar offending towards multiple partners.

"If we can find multiple partners you often find two or more will come forward and tell us they also suffered significant sexual or domestic abuse.

"As a result we’re able to put a strong case to the courts.”

Mr McEwan continued: "There’s a lot of offending now that gets reported to us which was all happening years ago (but was never reported to police).

“I’m heartened because I really think even if we’re unable to prove a criminal case, I know that those women are being signposted to support services that they need.

“I hope the end result is that victims have some real confidence in policing; that we’ve taken on board what they’ve said; we’ve believed them; we’ve investigated and ultimately, hopefully we’ll bring a perpetrator to justice.” 

In Fife reports of fraud have jumped by more than 136 per cent since 2018, with a big rise in online offences during the pandemic, and vulnerable people targeted by criminal gangs from outside the UK.

Mr McEwan said that makes it difficult to catch the culprits.

“We’re suddenly dealing with internet and telephone providers who are based throughout the world and some countries are not as engaging with authorities and helping identify where IP addresses may come from, for example,” he said. 

“We do know that some of these gangs – if they are successful in perpetrating a fraud against an individual – highlight that individual to other criminal gangs because they recognise it as an individual who in their eyes has a weakness. It’s actually a vulnerability that they’re preying upon.”