UNIVERSITY managers have condemned a university guide organisation as “irresponsible” for identifying Teesside students as facing the highest levels of crime in the region.

The Complete University Guide (CUG) has issued statistics which also appear to show that Teesside University students as living in the fourth worst crime area in England and Wales.

Overall the North-East is identified as the worst crime area for students across all of England and Wales, including for violent and sexual crime.

However Teesside University has insisted the way CUG has collated and presented the crime figures as “highly misleading.”

In previous years the CUG simply researched police crime statistics from three miles of a university’s main campus. This time researchers have derived data using term-time addresses supplied by students themselves. However even these statistics do not relate to crimes against students but against all members of the public.

The figures show that Teesside is the worst in the region for all categories of crime; burglary, robbery and violence and sexual offences with an overall score of 60.48. The next highest is Newcastle with an overall score of 48.09, Northumbria, 41,48, Sunderland, 38.18 and Durham with just 29.31. Across the country, the North-East has the highest overall crime score at 43.51 with the North-West having the second worst score at 42.95.

Dr Bernard Kingston, principal author of TheCompleteUniversityGuide.co.uk, defended the way the statistics were researched. He said: “Regrettably, in the UK universities are either unable or unwilling to disclose the rates of crime directly affecting their students on campus, let alone off campus, a matter of considerable interest to potential applicants.”

A spokesman for Teesside University said the institution has scored highly by indepedent bodies for security. The figures do not relate the university’s main postcodes in Middlesbrough and Darlington and student satisfaction ratings are high.

He said: “We are concerned and disappointed once again with this guide’s irresponsible conflation of geographical crime data and student experience, which is highly misleading. The CUG itself admits that these statistics cannot be construed as a measure of crimes against students, yet persists with its scaremongering by assigning scores to university campuses in order to promote its University guide. Teesside University has consistently scored highly for security.”