BEMUSED Hawkshead residents found themselves defending the serenity of their idyllic streets after a national news report made the village sound like a gangsters' paradise, reports Jennie Dennett.

A Daily Mail story about the rapid closure of Britain's police stations reported that "street fights and bad behaviour had become the norm" since the home of Hawkshead's bobbies was converted into flats in 1999.

It quoted a resident complaining that there used to be more order at closing time and that there were regularly drunk teenagers "milling around street corners, fighting and making noise".

But locals failed to recognise the correspondent's characterisation of the mean streets of Hawkshead, whose cobbled thoroughfares are more usually described as quaint or picturesque.

"It sounded like a 1930s Chicago street scene and not at all like Hawkshead!" complained parish council clerk John Poole.

Pauline Carter, of the Hawkshead in Bloom team, was equally bewildered: "We have a couple of pranksters and maybe once in a while someone runs off with a plant pot but it's hardly the wild streets of the inner cities!"

After 20 years of living in the centre of the village, Mrs Carter struggled to recall any street corner scuffles.

"Occasionally things do happen, like in any place, but usually only on bank holidays when there are lots of people about but it is so, so rare.

"We'd just had the Britain in Bloom judges in and they had commented on what a lovely, peaceful, safe place Hawkshead was and then this appears in the paper the following morning! Everyone was just gobsmacked!"

The report prompted much mirth in local pubs but there were also anger, particularly among tourist operators, the parish council and Cumbria Police.

"Whoever said those things is absolutely out of touch with what goes on in Hawkshead," said Mr Poole. "It's detrimental one it will put off visitors but also anyone who read that might think there's bother at Hawkshead, lets stir it up'. It will attract the wrong kind of people."

The Westmorland Gazette tried to track down the source of the comments, named in the Daily Mail as estate agent John Bould, but no one in the village recognised the name and he is neither on the electoral roll nor in the phone book.

PC David Hall, an officer in Hawkshead for the last 14 years who was once based in the village station, believed its demise had made little difference to the amount of crime.

"When I read the report I read it twice to check it said Hawkshead. It didn't ring true to me. Hawkshead is a small village, we get a lot of tourists and occasionally we do get some relatively minor problems but it's a pretty quiet and safe place."

A look back at the crime statistics reveals there were just 26 offences involving violence between 1997 and July this year about three a year.

In the weeks before the report between July 12 and August 12 there were only 13 incidents. None involved violence and there were no reports of disorder at closing time.

"We do get some trouble but it's the exception not the rule," stressed PC Hall. "If this person has concerns about Hawkshead perhaps he could contact me and I would be more than happy to discuss it."

The Daily Mail declined to comment on the reaction to their report until they had spoken to the reporter concerned who is currently in the Sudan.