Police call for smartphone app backup

They are, by their own admission, more used to the pocket-book and pen. But a group of police officers are meeting with technology experts this weekend to try to develop a set of smartphone apps which could help them catch criminals.

Among the suggested inventions they will discuss at the two-day event is an app to help police “visualise the structure of a building” they are about to raid. Officers have also put forward a tool to guide them on the law.

The event was the idea of Acting Sergeant Neil Beet of the Metropolitan Police, who said: “A police officer attending a victim’s home address is still using a pen and paper. “Someone working for a delivery firm or British Gas can do a lot more than us [on the doorstep]… We still have to reproduce notes, which can take hours.”