Crime rose in Ottery last month to 28 compared to the same period last year.

Crime in Ottery rose in May with reported assaults making up nearly a quarter of the total.

Officers recorded 28 offences last month in comparison to 22 for the same period last year. The total for the year stands at 51.

In her monthly round-up PCSO Maria Clapp said there was six incidents of assaults in the town making up nearly 25 per cent of the offences.

She also recorded reports of criminal damage, theft and threatening behaviour.

The full list of reported crimes was:

•Six incidents of assault

•One incident of threatening behaviour

•Criminal damage to a bike and also theft of a bicycle, which was later found down the road

•Possession of a weapon

•Theft after a mobile was stolen from a bus seat

•Three incidents of threatening words and behaviour and offensive messages.

•Two shop lifting incidents in Sainsbury

•Theft from a motor vehicle

•Two incidents of windscreen wipers had been snapped off.

•Damage at Coleridge Medical Centre after it had names and symbols scratched into the patio slabs

•Forced lock on a trailer

•Criminal damage, where a cone had been forced behind a drain pipe, and banging on the window

•Criminal damage to a motor vehicle, where a window was smashed

•Criminal damage a vehicle at the Bowd car park, where a bag stolen

•A boundary fence removed