Police claims that attacks on police officers during the New Year’s Eve celebrations had doubled compared to the year before are not borne out by the figures, the NRC reported on Thursday.

On January 1 preliminary police figures showed that 59 officers had been attacked compared to 27 in 2017. This prompted prime minister Mark Rutte to say he would ‘personally like to beat up’ the perpetrators.

An analysis of the definitive figures by data journalism company LocalFocus and college lecturer Marnix Eysink, show a rise of incidents from 51 to 59 on New Year’s Eve but the number of officers attacked went down from 88 to 82.

The analyses also showed a sharp downward trend over the last five years, with 149 attacks on officers in 2014/15.

Police spokesperson Helma Huizing told the NRC that the discrepancy in the figures is caused by the fact that registration of many of the incidents took place early in the morning of January 1.

‘That is the information we had on the day. There were fewer reports coming in after that date than a year ago. We will have to take into account that people report the incidents earlier.’

Asked if police had been precipitate in claiming attacks had doubled Huizing said it was clearly stated that the figures were not the definitive ones, the NRC reported.