Complaints against the police are increasing, a new report has revealed.

Official statistics show gripes on a variety of issues, ranging from officers executing a search warrant on the wrong house to police vehicles reversing into parked cars, have risen.

Between April and December last year 407 complaints were made against the force, up from 393 for the same period the previous year.

This equates to a complaint every 1,119 incidents.

Brighton and Hove receives more complaints about its officers than any of the other four police divisions.

Police bosses are handed a complaint for every 1,000 incidents in the city compared with less than one in every 4,000 cases at Gatwick.

East Sussex officers had an average of 0.8 complaints per 1,000 incidents while West Downs had 0.74 and North Downs 0.54.

Between January and March this year ten complaints were substantiated. Cases included an officer leaving an embarrassing calling card at the rear gate of the a house, indicating a resident was in trouble with the police.

In another case officers targeted the wrong house after failing to check the information in a warrant pack.

Civil claims have also increased for the second year running, up by 39 in a year. Some16 of these cases related to unlawful arrest and false imprisonment.

Despite police vehicles being fitted with parking sensors, the figures for police cars hitting "immobile property" remain consistently high. This year alone there have been 29 incidents of police vehicles reversing into other cars.

The figures have been released in a report to the Sussex Police Authority whose chairman, Peter Jones, said the risewas an indicator of the success of the police.

He said: "The figures are rising but are still very modest given the success of the force in solving crimes.

"The proportion of all crimes brought to justice has increased to well over 30 per cent, up from about 17 per cent a decade ago. It is inevitable that as you become more effective the complaints will rise.

"Some will be genuine, I have no doubt about that, but others will be as a way of trying to get out of whatever they have been charged with."

The report also reveals that three of the four former Sussex police officers suing the force over the fatal shooting of James Ashley have dropped their claims.

Mr Ashley, 39, got up naked from the bed he was sharing with his girlfriend and was shot in the neck by officers carrying out a drugs raid. They had a warrant to search his flat in St Leonards when the shooting took place in the early hours of January 15, 1998.

The Argus revealed last month how reports of police officers being rude had rocketed by 25 per cent between 2005 and 2006.

Allegations of "incivility" from Sussex Police officers and support staff towards members of the public shot up from 93 in the last nine months of 2005 to 116 in the same period a year later.

Meanwhile the number of complaints about discriminatory behaviour by police fell from seven to six and instances of alleged oppressive behaviour dropped dramatically, down more than 22 percent from 121 to 94.