The county’s police officers were kept busy in the early hours of New Year’s Day with 262 incidents being reported in Essex between midnight and 4am.

Of the 262 incidents, which is an increase of 130 per cent compared to an average Friday morning, 121 were emergencies, which is 537 per cent higher than normal.

Chief Inspector Simon Anslow said: “There were loads of emergencies and priorities and we got them all covered thanks to some really great work by our officers and staff. There was on average an incident every minute across the county.”