Children as young as nine and 10 are among those arrested by police in Kent on suspicion of serious crimes such as arson, sexual assault and possessing an offensive weapon.

Thousands of youngsters under 18 have been detained across the county on suspicion of a litany of lawbreaking including murder, rape and making indecent photos, according to new figures.

But the total number of pre-teen arrests in the county has dropped by almost half on the previous year, with 72 youngsters held for offences in 2017, compared with 123 in 2016.

The data, provided by Kent Police under the Freedom of Information Act, shows 8,345 people aged between nine and 17 were arrested in Kent between 2015 and 2017 on suspicion of more than 100 different offences, though the number of detentions has decreased year on year.

The nine-year-old, detained in 2017, was held on suspicion of common assault, assaulting a police officer and criminal damage.

Among the thousands of crimes recorded county-wide were an 11-year-old held on suspicion of grievous bodily harm, a 12-year-old accused of intimidating a witness and a 13-year-old suspected of endangering the safety of an aircraft.

Other stand-out offences listed among the data included prostitution and racially aggravated assault.

Common assault and cases of criminal damage under £5,000 dominated the list, with 951 and 1,419 arrests made respectively over the past 36 months.

There were 28 arrests made on suspicion of murder or attempted murder since 2015 across the county, with 13 of those coming in the past year.

Among those held was a 16-year-old boy accused of killing Wayne Chester, 50, with a single punch outside a McDonald’s in Maidstone last September.

Two other boys, aged 14 and 15, were detained in connection with the murder of
Razvan Sirbu, a Romanian man who was living rough at a beauty spot in Tovil, near Maidstone.

They continue to be on police bail.