THE NUMBER of complaints against Hampshire police has soared by 41 per cent - the biggest rise in England and Wales.

New figures reveal officers were accused of either brutality, racism, intimidation or corruption on 1,054 occasions in the year to March 2004, compared with 741 times 12 months earlier.

The level of public discontent with the police's handling of situations becomes apparent when contrasted with grievances lodged with the country's other 42 forces.

Only three, all covering major cities, received more official complaints - the Metropolitan Police (4,097 complaints), West Midlands (2,012) and Greater Manchester (1,533).

Hampshire also recorded the highest complaint rate of any force - 276 per 1,000 officers, up 38 per cent from 200 complaints per officer in 2002-03.

Next worst was West Midlands police (251 per 1,000 officers). Neighbouring Wiltshire Police recorded 174 complaints per 1,000 bobbies which was worse than Dorset Police (158 per 1,000 officers) and Sussex (123 per 1,000 officers).

Home Office statistics revealed Hampshire Police received 286 complaints of assaults by PCs - more than four times the number lodged in Dorset. There were 306 accusations of failures of duty by officers followed by allegations of incivility (222), other oppressive behaviour (139),malpractice (61) and racism (19).

Hampshire Police completed 1,076 complaints investigations in 2003-04 - some dating back to the previous year. Of these, 287 were unsubstantiated and 49 - or 4.6 per cent - upheld.

Most of the rest were resolved at a local level, such as an officer visiting, while in some cases the complaint was withdrawn or the investigation halted if the complainant did not co-operate or could not be found.

Figures include probes handled internally by the force and more serious allegations investigated by the Police Complaints Authority and its successor, the Independent Police Complaints Council.

Nationally, the number of complaints against officers increased from 23,113 in 2002-03 to 23,849 in 2003-04 - up four per cent, the first increase in four years.

There were 172 complaints per 1,000 officers - down one per cent.

More than one-quarter involved allegations of assault by a police officer and 20 per cent related to other oppressive behaviour. The number substantiated rose two per cent to 961 - half where PCs failed in duty. Chief Supt Derek Stevens, head of Hampshire police's professional standards department, said: "Hampshire Constabulary has adopted the same ethical principles for recording crime to complaints about police conduct.

"We do not believe there has been any deterioration in conduct or behaviour of our employees but we do believe that officers on basic command units are more efficient in capturing information from complainants.

"The professional standards department is also more efficient in their recording and processing of complaints received."

Steve Price, chairman of Hampshire Police Federation, believes a change in the way complaints were recorded is partly behind the steep increase.

He said: "Hampshire saw the rules changing about how complaints are logged and started doing it ahead of other forces. Under the old system, you could only make a complaint if it happened to you or one of your dependants, but now you can be completely unconnected and make one."