Your article "Station crime still rising" (The Argus, October 9) gives a distorted picture of crime at Southern's stations in the Brighton and Hove area.
Statistics from British Transport Police (BTP), a survey by Councillor Paul Elgood and a council review document from 2004 were used. While the 2005/2006 figures supplied by the British Transport Police do show an increase over the previous year, this was due to agreed changes in reporting methods.
For the first time, the figures include crimes which are not against the person, such as graffiti.
Coun Elgood's finding that "security is now passengers' biggest worry" reflects our own survey, which revealed safety and security are the most important issues to our passengers. Southern takes this very seriously and has invested a lot of time, money and effort in introducing measures which have made our railway much safer than it was a few years ago.
We feel this article can only serve to undermine all the hard work being done across the network to make rail travel even safer.
- Chris Hudson, Media Relations Manager Southern Railway
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