A system of dealing with complaints against Sussex Police officers has been revised.

Petty complaints against officers that led to formal investigations has damaged staff morale, a report said.

Even some complainants were surprised their grumbles had resulted in bureaucratic fault-finding procedures.

Chief Inspector Samantha Coates, in her report to the Sussex Police Authority, said some officers were baffled why some matters not regarded as genuine complaints were still being formally investigated.

She said: "It badly affected the morale of officers.

"The procedure had been convoluted and over-bureaucratic and had been perceived by officers as being far beyond what a member of the public had expected after making a complaint."

Virtually every letter or verbal comment of dissatisfaction had led to investigations and even officers not directly involved in the matters had sometimes been dragged into inquiries.

She said: "Often, members of the public did not wish to make a formal complaint with all the bureaucracy that entailed.

"They simply wanted the police to know there was a problem, which they wanted sorted out."

Ms Coates said the system had now been replaced with a more "reasonable" system that allowed police managers to deal with minor complaints in an informal way.

A petty complaint might involve an insult.

A spokesman for Sussex Police said: "An officer dealing with someone unco-operative, drunk or violent is often subjected to verbal insults or spitting.

"Officers, human beings after all, might respond by telling the offender 'don't be a prat or dope'.

"Officers are expected to be civil at all times and, despite provocation, must try to remain so. If they don't it sometimes results in a complaint."

Ms Coates said formal complaints in her division, Weald, had since fallen. Only one was recorded between April and June compared to 22 in the same period last year. Throughout the county only 140 were recorded in the quarter compared to 405.

The authority's complaints committee noted the number of complaints arising from arrests had increased to 42 per cent compared to 25 per cent.

Committee chairman Margery Turner said: "This was felt to be due to the improved performance of Sussex Police in detecting more crimes leading to more arrests."