More and more complaints are being made about policemen being rude.

Reports of PCs being impolite have rocketed by 25 per cent between 2005 and 2006. The soaring number of complaints have been revealed before Sussex Police Authority's complaints committee meets on Wednesday to discuss the figures.

Allegations of "incivility" from Sussex Police officers and support staff towards members of the public shot up from 93 in the last nine months of 2005 to 116 in the same period a year later.

The overall level of complaints against the force increased by 3.5 per cent from 393 to 407. Out of 455,505 incidents this relates to a complaint every 1,119 incidents.

Out of the five divisions of the force, Brighton and Hove receives more complaints about its officers than anywhere else.

Police bosses are handed a complaint for every 1,000 incidents in the city compared with less than one in every 4,000 cases that crop up at Gatwick.

East Sussex officers had an average of 0.8 complaints per 1,000 incidents while West Downs had 0.74 and North Downs 0.54.

The number of complaints about discriminatory behaviour by police fell from seven to six and instances of alleged oppressive behaviour dropped dramatically, down more than 22 percent from 121 to 94.

A total of 144 complaints of officers failing in their duty were made during 2006, an increase of five per cent from the 2005 figure of 137.

Miscellaneous complaints also rose from eight to 20, a 150 per cent jump.

Of all complaints looked at by senior officers, just six percent were substantiated and action was taken against officers. 44 per cent were unsubstantiated after investigations while 41 were percent were resolved without a major investigation, two per cent were withdrawn by people and in seven per cent of cases police bosses said officers had good reason to have acted as they did.

The figures - for the period of April 2006 to December 2006 - will be looked at by members of the police authority which will decide what, if any, action should be taken.

Pat Welch, the deputy clerk to Sussex Police Authority, said: "These statistics will be considered by the complaints committee on Wednesday, which monitors complaints against Sussex Police.

"We think the performance of Sussex Police both in terms of these statistics and previous ones is very good. The number of complaints against Sussex Police per 1,000 incidents is very, very small.

"The more activity there is for the force with tackling criminality and the incidents they get involved in will inevitably tend to generate the complaints. The two go together."

Complaints about the way the police handle a case are made by writing to the chief constable or the divisional commander. Complaints of serious misconduct are always referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the national independent watchdog for forces.