GWENT Police has set itself a new target of reducing crime by 23 per cent by the end of March 2005.

Chief Constable Keith Turner believes achieving that target should put Gwent in the bottom segment of the league table of crime per head of population in the UK. The league table has four segments, the bottom being the best.

In 1999, Gwent Police set itself a target of cutting crime by 40 per cent over the next four years.

At that point, Gwent was eighth in the league table and in the top or worst segment.

Mr Turner said: "By the end of March 2002, after two years of reducing crime, we got ourselves into the third quartile (segment) - in 26th place nationally - having reduced crime by almost 22 per cent."

But he said a new way of counting crime, brought in by the Home Office, meant their target also had to change.

Mr Turner said that after taking up the new method of counting offences in March this year, Gwent found itself in 16th place.

"We were going in the wrong direction, but police forces adopted these new counting rules at different times," he said.

"With everyone working to the same rules we are now in the second quartile."

Mr Turner said the aim was to reduce crime by just over 13 per cent by March 2004, and by almost 11 per cent in the next financial year.

"These are achievable targets," he said. "That gets us well into the bottom quartile where we want to be.

"We could get there with slightly less than 23 per cent, but we're going for the middle of the bottom quartile because every other force is aspiring to get better as well."