Burglars were scared off committing crime during the police's Operation Backlash against them.

Backlash targeted the city's worst criminals with up to 30 officers a day flooding Oxford's streets, arresting or stopping and searching known thieves getting 'on their backs' as one senior police officer said.

The operation was kept secret for its first week but, following publicity about it, burglaries immediately dropped to zero, Det Chief Insp Andy Boyd told the Oxford Mail.

He said: "Following news of Backlash getting out, the next day there were no burglaries in Oxford. The following day there were two and then the day after that there was none again, so we were delighted with that.

"It was undoubtedly they knew we were out in strength so I think people were scared into not committing burglaries. It shows it worked."

In the fortnight running up to the operation, which started on April 24, there was an average of four burglaries a day. That dropped by more than a quarter in the following two weeks.

Last year the city was hit by a 13.6 per cent increase in burglaries, to an average of just over three a day, according to crime figures released earlier this month.

Over 70 people were arrested and 346 people stop-checked in the first two weeks of Backlash.

Mr Boyd said: "The purpose of the operation was to reduce burglaries. In the first week we were hitting people who were not expecting it.

"We expected a decrease in the second week but it was undoubtedly more pronounced because the criminals knew about it and so were not out offending.

"It exceeded what we were expecting."

He added: "The obvious message from this is that we will be continuing our campaign and will build on this momentum.

"However I would appeal to the public to help us as well. We've shown our commitment by putting this amount of manpower but we need assistance from the public by calling us if they are aware of or suspect criminality."

Backlash came just days after Oxford was named by insurance company Endsleigh as the fifth worst city in England and Wales for insurance claims over burglaries.

Mr Boyd said he believed the insurance figures distorted the true picture because of Oxford's high number of student houses.

If one was burgled, it usually resulted in several insurance claims from students and so it appeared Oxford had more burglaries than it did in reality, he said.