DORCHESTER councillors have been told they should lobby to ensure the town's police officers remain in the town.

Retiring police Sergeant Ian Schofield told a Dorechester Town Council meeting that for the first time in years the county town was up to strength with 5 PCs and 4 PCSO's who between them had reduced crime overall – including a 20per cent reduction in shoplifting.

But he warned that there was always a temptation, which he understood, to pull officers away from their designated neighbourhood policing roles and use them elsewhere.

He said that town councillors might like to question whether officers who were meant to be working in Dorchester were actually doing so.

He said as he was speaking to the meeting two of his neigbourhood team were working elsewhere.

The sergeant, who retires in May, said his officers had over the last year managed to cut vehicle crime by 70 per cent throught the arrests of a handful of individuals – but one of those, who had been released from prison early, was now active again.

"He's back out and back at it again but we are hoping to arrest him and convict him soon," he told a town council meeting, adding that the man stole from vehicles rather than taking them.

He said residents could help protect themselves by ensuring their vehicles were always locked and valuables not left inside.

Sgt Schofield said that while tackling shoplifting had been successful some bigger companies were not helping themselves by only reporting incidents to their national offices, rather than to the local police. He said that while it might help the companies build up profiles of prolific offenders who moved around from town to town it did little to help his team catch the thieves.

The officer said he had been puzzled by a recent overall rise in anti-social behaviour with a suggestion that measures to crack down on it in the Weymouth area might have led to youngsters from the resort travelling to Dorchester to cause problems.

Town councillors thanked Sgt Schoefield for his work, wished him a happy retirement, and applauded him as he left the meeting.