CSO figures reveal worrying increase in sexual assaults

VIOLENT sexual assaults doubled in the last year and section 4 rapes rose by 36%.

Cases of drug growth, manufacture or importation rose by 80% in the same period and cruelty towards or abandonment of children increased by 37%.

Those are just some of the figures released by the Central Statistics Office yesterday in its headline crime statistics for the second quarter of 2007. The report showed headline crime has decreased by 1.1% in the last year.