ONE in six crooks in the county are refusing to pay their court fines, a damning new report has revealed.

Lancashire magistrates courts collected 85 per cent of financial penalties dished out in 2004/05 although that was still above the national target of 80 per cent which was achieved across England and Wales.

Whitehall's chief financial watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), compiled the figures during a survey of the collection of fines the commonest form of penalty imposed by the 42 magistrates courts committees across the country.

It criticises the poor performance of many benches in collecting the cash and the fact that payment rates exclude cancelled fines and include money from penalties imposed in previous years.

In a league table Lancashire comes 22nd.

But the top performer Devon and Cornwall achieved a payment rate of 126 per cent by clearing up a backlog of previous unpaid fines while Dorset comes lowest with just 62 per cent.

The NAO also said that in two thirds of cases the courts have to chase the money before the offender made any payment.

It recommends that magistrates ensure they have enough information to set an appropriate fine avoiding court hearings to cancel financial penalties which were imposed without enough information on the offender's ability to pay.

It calls for more measures to encourage immediate payment including facilities for the offenders to pay up before leaving the court building after the hearing.

And it says there should be closer monitoring on the payment of fines.

The watchdog also says that the cost of cancelled fines is £27.8 million.