RESIDENTS in Peebles are living with a sense of fear that they might be subject to an unprovoked violent assault.

The revelation was made at a meeting of the town’s community council this month while discussing a police report.

Chairman Les Turnbull said: “Two things that jumped out at me were the need for context around the assaults that were reported in that police report. Were they domestic assaults, or were they random, unprovoked attacks in the street?”

Community councillor Malcolm Bruce raised the issue with sergeant Stephen Granger.

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Mr Bruce said: “The simple answer is that domestic assaults are not included in the overall figures for assaults, principally because of the way the statistics are gathered and presented.

“Police Scotland is striving not to allow anybody who is either subject or the perpetrator of an alleged domestic assault to be identified. They are more or less kept out of these statistics that are presented to us.”

Mr Turnbull asked if the police could give any context about the nature of assaults detailed within the report.

Mr Bruce replied: “What Sergeant Granger said was that these are nine times out of ten, people known to each other, and it’s just handbags at dawn on the street or in the back garden, usually with a degree of alcohol involved.

“A lot of this goes back to conversations that we’ve had in the past about crime figures. Generally, there aren’t actually an awful lot of assaults being reported in the area.”

But Mr Turnbull said that many people are concerned that they might become the subject of a random assault.

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He added: “I understand your comments about handbags at dawn and drunk people squaring up to each other, but I’m seeking, if we can, to get reassurance that the number of random assaults around the town is in fact very low.”

Mr Bruce said the figures give that reassurance, and there was nothing within those to provide Police Scotland with concern.

In relation to anti-social behaviour, the chairman asked for an indication of the time between reporting incidents and police attendance.

“When the officer arrives at the scene, he presses a button on his airwave radio, and that alerts the control room that they are there and dealing with the matter, so there is a very accurate time of arrival on scene reported,” said Mr Bruce.

Although he doubted the figures for Peebles would be available at a “postcode level”, Mr Bruce said he would raise a Freedom Of Information request.

Mr Turnbull replied: “I think on that latter point that we should pursue it because it is an issue that’s exercising the minds of a lot of people in the town who have got concerns with response times.

“I do know that very often, our local officers are between a rock and a hard place, but nevertheless, it would be useful if we knew what the stats are telling us.”