Sussex is among the most dangerous places in Britain to be a police officer, new figures have revealed.

A police officer in the county is attacked once every 11 hours on average.

More officers were injured in Sussex than those serving in tough inner city areas such as Nottingham and Liverpool.

The county has the sixth highest number of assaults out of 50 constabularies across England, with 4,058 assaults recorded between 2002 and 2006.

That equates to 1.6 assaults on each of the 3,105 officers serving in the county.

The statistics were unearthed by Conservative MP Grant Shapps, who requested figures from every force in England, Wales and Scotland under the Freedom of Information Act.

They revealed that across the country five out of every six police officers have been attacked over the last five years.

Mr Shapps said the tide of violence indicated a need to rebuild a sense of personal responsibility for individuals.

He said: "The number of attacks on our police in the last five years reveals the hidden yet perilous reality of life on the front line.

"The truth is that yet another government target, safety initiative or programme will do little to protect our front line police.

"Preventing our officers from being assaulted requires a change in attitude towards our police.

Brian Stockham, chairman of Sussex Police Federation, agreed the number of assaults indicated a lack of respect in society for those in authority.

He also pointed to the relatively low numbers of police officers in Sussex as a possible reason for the county's high assault rate.

He said: "These figures are shocking. Sussex is one of the safest places to live in the country, but it is widely accepted that Sussex has 304 officers below the national average per proportion of the population for shire forces. At the same time we have more police community support officers (PCSOs) than the Metropolitan police. PCSOs can't deal with confrontations and we are running dreadfully short of real police officers, who are trained to observe and deal with confrontations."

A shortage of experienced officers in the force compounds the problem, he added.

He said most officers were not deterred from going on patrols, despite the risk of assault.

He said: "They are the kind of people who do not back down from difficult situations. By nature they get satisfaction from stepping in and dealing with those sort of scenarios. There may be one or two exceptions, but most officers are not scared of going out onto the streets."