Facebook fascination
Detectives will get lessons on how to use Facebook and Twitter in a bid to hunt down killers as part of a review of the National Policing Improvement Agency's (NPIA) training scheme.
According to the BBC, coppers are reportedly scrutinising Facebook wall posts in connection with the murder of teen Marvin Henry in London, this week. Furthermore, it has already proved effective as Adam Mann was jailed for life for the murder of his ex-wife, Lisa Beverley, after it was discovered she was said to have taunted him on the social networking site.
A man called Tony Couchman was found dead in his prison cell on the eve of his murder trial scheduled for earlier this year and police found he had updated his murdered 19-year-old daughter's Bebo page after her reported disappearance in May of this year.
Deputy chief constable Nick Gargan, acting head of the NPIA, reportedly said: "This programme is a vital part of the career pathway for detectives and the new training covers sensitive areas of policing where limited guidance existed previously."
"These improvements are exactly what detectives need to tackle the challenges and complexities of modern policing effectively," he reportedly added.
According to the broadcaster, some 3,500 detectives will attend the ‘crime investigator development programme,' which included the social network training, every year.
It will also reportedly include specialist sections on how to better record allegations of rape and domestic violence as well as alleged ‘honour-based crimes,' which the police force have previously been accused of handling insensitively.
Coppers will also be taught how to use a new database of footprints made by different types of shoes as well as how to spot signs of Post Traumatic Stress in victims and witnesses, in a bid to avoid making their lives more difficult.
