The borough's reputation as a suburban haven took a knock this week as it was revealed that more crimes are now perpetrated in Barnet than in all but five other London boroughs.

It means total recorded crime in the borough is now higher than in Hackney and Newham which both have more than 200 extra officers than Barnet.

Crime in Barnet rose in 12 out of 15 key Metropolitan Police targets this year, with overall offences increasing by 4.4 per cent the third highest in London according to figures released this week for 2004.

Despite that, Barnet police officers were doing a relatively good job, resolving more crimes per officer than almost any other borough, and bringing half of all those who committed racist and domestic crimes to justice last year.

But the borough also recorded the highest increase in motor crime across the Met and the second-highest growth in violent crime.

The figures were released on Thursday, days before Barnet's biggest ever criminal investigation, Operation Bangor, which took out a crime ring alleged to have masterminded a £5 million cheque fraud in Golders Green.

Detective Chief Inspector Keith Surtees claimed that the overall crime increase of almost 1,600 offences in the borough is explained by the extra 1,200 reports of cheque theft in NW11, and hundreds of fixed penalty notices handed out last summer due to rowdy drunks.

Despite conceding that police had to divert officers away to deal with Bangor', Mr Surtees does not believe that this has had an effect on other crime areas.

"Barnet itself is large geographically, and that in itself brings challenges," said Super-intendent Sean Walters, Dep-uty Borough Commander.

"If we had more resources we could do more. The crime reporting puts us on par with some of the inner London borough, although they have significantly more resources."

Walters remains confident that crime will fall this year, and has welcomed the arrival of five new safer neighbourhood teams, as areas where the units have already been in place have seen crime fall by two per cent.