NEW figures reveal that the number of pensioners arrested in Notts is on the increase.
Arrests of people aged over 75 years in the county had increased by 20 per cent in one year.
Some of the crimes suggest Victor Meldrews are alive and well in the city and county.
The TV character, played by Richard Wilson in the popular sitcom, One Foot in the Grave, was notoriously irritable and bad-tempered.
Seven of the arrests of over-75s related to threats and 12 arrests were for damage to property.
Other arrests, however, related to serious crimes such as theft and assault, sexual offences and drink-driving, which accounts for the greatest number.
Nottingham Elders Forum chairman Dennis Andrews, 89, said: "Our age group used to go to the pub, drink sensibly and then get in the car and drive home.
"This is a cultural thing. There was nowhere near the traffic on the roads then that there is today. And, of course, the speed cars can go today is much faster. I think older people are under more stress than they were years ago, and some are hitting the bottle a little bit more be cause pressure on finances and an uncertain future is so much greater.
"I can remember my first car – a Morris– served me very well, but it never went faster than 50mph."
In the last five years, 200 older people have been arrested – some more than once.
Five elderly people were arrested for being drunk and disorderly, while a further nine were arrested for exposure.
Twenty-seven were arrested for assault and a further 19 were done for theft from a shop and 29 for drink driving.
In 2012, 43 people aged 75 and over were arrested – the most during the last five years.
In 2011, 35 people in this age group were arrested.
Earlier this year a pensioner who is believed to be Britain's oldest drink-driver was banned from the road – at the age of 88. David Bye, from Ipswich, who walks with two sticks, admitted drink-driving and was given a 12-month driving ban and fined £140.
