Police in Oxfordshire neglected to solve serious crimes in favour of achieving Government targets, the former Chief Constable has admitted.

Peter Neyroud, who stood down as Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police almost two years ago, said police had been concentrating on solving lesser crimes to meet detection targets and improve performance statistics.

And he said that when he was in control of Thames Valley, he was one of those senior officers who did not give serious crime the attention it deserved.

Mr Neyroud, now chief executive at the National Policing Improvement Agency, said in a lecture to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in London that there should be a sharper focus on those serious crimes.

Last night, his successor, current Chief Constable Sara Thornton, said there had been a shift in priorities and her officers did not "slavishly follow Government targets".

Mr Neyroud said that under the target system, catching a murderer was regarded as no more important than apprehending someone who had stolen a bottle of milk.

He added: "There has been, in the minds of many professionals, me included, a neglect of the serious.

"Because detecting a stolen milk bottle counts the same as detecting murder - you get your points from, not necessarily milk bottles, but certainly in mid-range volume crime, rather than serious crime."

Mr Neyroud, who said police detection of the most serious crimes had not improved in 10 years, did not want to comment when approached yesterday by the Oxford Mail.

Miss Thornton said she was happy with the current detection rate of 24.5 per cent for the region.

She said: "We have had higher detection rates when we have got more low level detections - but we are after quality not quantity."

She said the number of extra officers put into investigations into serious crime - 34 in 2006/07, 27 in 2007/08 and nine due in 2008/09 - showed the force was taking the issue seriously.

She said: "The issue for me as chief is not just about chasing targets.

"It's about providing proper service and responding to serious crimes with proper resources.

"Although the Government sets the targets for detections for all offences, we have said to our staff the four detections to concentrate on are burglary of a dwelling, robbery, vehicle crime and violence with injury. Although we look at total detections, we are really concerned about these four areas.

"Mr Neyroud pointed out there is a danger of slavishly following Government targets - but that is not what we do in Thames Valley."

A spokesman for the National Policing Improvement Agency said: "The performance comments were just a small percentage of the entire lecture that was given."

Mr Neyroud's comments were based on his experience in policing in the past five years.