Dartmouth's decision to call time on late night regatta boozing was one of the main reasons for the fall in violence during the massive annual event, police have declared.

Extra security staff supplied by the publicans and the regatta committee also had an important impact, Dartmouth Police Inspector Andy Tomlison explained.

For the first time the town's licensees agreed to close their bars by 11.30pm on the main regatta nights following last year's regatta violence.

Insp Tomlinson said that during this year's regatta police dealt with some 13 offences that could be directly linked to the event.

They consisted of three cases of people being drunk and disorderly, five assaults, two thefts from market stalls, two dinghies taken without consent and one offence of criminal damage to a car.

'Although a significant increase in crime when compared to any other similar period for the year, these figures are not unreasonable for the number of additional people in the town. Effectively Dartmouth becomes Torquay for two or three days.'

And he told town councillors during his monthly report to the council: 'Significant factors in improving the event atmosphere were the voluntary early closure of licensed premises and the presence of security staff employed by some licences premises and the regatta staff.

'We felt that that made a quite significant difference this year.'

Last year police called a meeting with local publicans and regatta bosses following the number of violent incidents in the town during the regatta, most of which were linked to alcohol.

Insp Tomlinson said the situation may have been even worse than the figures suggested because police were so busy dealing with incidents that they were unable to get to reports of some fights quick enough and by the time they arrived any participants had gone.

As a direct result of last year's problems for the first time, this year police brought in their CCTV van to record events

Insp Tomlinson added: 'From a police perspective regatta went well.

Although there were a lot of people in the town and there was a lot of drinking, the atmosphere in the late evening was far better humoured than last year. Overall crime numbers were about the same as last year although violent crime was down.'