ONE in ten children arrested for violent offences in Essex hail from Braintree, Witham and Halstead, new figures reveal.

Figures released by Essex Police under the Freedom of Information Act show there were nearly 300 arrests of under 18s for violent and sexual crimes in Braintree, Witham and Halstead in the last two-and-a-half years.

This equates to nearly 10 per cent of all children arrested for violent offences in the county.

The figures cover the period from August 2012 until March this year.

An Essex Police spokesman said the figures only went up to March because of “system constraints”.

He added: “A single offender may have been arrested for one offence, however they could be charged with multiple offences.

“Also, it does not always follow that someone arrested for one offence is subsequently charged with that offence.”

The number of under-18s arrested for the most serious offences is low, with no arrests for murder and eight for rape.

This is compared with 11 for murder and 105 for rape countywide.

However, 12 per cent of Essex Police’s 1,916 arrests of under-18s for assault took place in the district.

These included 102 incidents of causing actual bodily harm, seven of causing grievous bodily harm and seven assaults against police officers.

There were only eight arrests for robbery, equivalent to just over two per cent of the Essex total.

In total, Essex Police arrested 11,733 children over the period.

The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is ten years old.

Suspected offenders are usually granted anonymity by the courts until they are 18.

Essex Police could not supply information about convictions, but figures released by the Crown Prosecution Service, also under the Freedom of Information Act, show 2,577 teenagers were prosecuted in Essex, mostly in magistrates’ courts, between August 2013 and June this year.

The numbers suggest only about a quarter of those arrested are prosecuted.