Cleveland Police join Yorkshire detectives to form squad of 'super sleuths'
It'll mean an extra 27 experienced officers will be on hand to handle the region's most serious crimes.
Brutal crimes in Teesside will soon be handled by a squad of 'super sleuths', tasked with solving the region's most serious crimes.
Cleveland Police have joined with officers from North Yorkshire Police to form a joint team of experienced detectives, to investigate crimes like rape, murder and armed robbery.
It's planned to go live in November this year, with teams being based in Middlesbrough and Harrogate.
The collaboration will boost the number of skilled staff from 47 to 74 and should allow officers to review more cold cases.
Police bosses hope the changes will decrease the need to take officers off their beat to help with serious crimes.
Detectives will work in both patches, but can be drawn upon by their superiors to cover work in the other area.
The plan is part of a wider discourse for forces to collaborate, in a bid to save time, money and resources.
Police and Crime Commissioner for Cleveland, Barry Coppinger, said: “This is a fantastic example of how police forces can work together to achieve the ultimate aims of bringing perpetrators to justice and providing an efficient and effective service.
"It’s one step further in our already successful collaboration approach, and we will continue to look for opportunities to collaborate with partner agencies.
“I will be keeping a close watch on the development of the team and look forward to seeing the fruits of their labour as they keep our communities safe by putting offenders behind bars.”
Temporary Chief Constable Iain Spittal said: “We have some of the very best and highly-experienced detectives across Cleveland and North Yorkshire and I’m sure this new joint team will be a force to be reckoned with against the criminal fraternity.
"A key part of this collaboration is our ability to strengthen our approach to local policing, as it provides us with extra resilience to deal with serious cases so that our other detectives and officers can deal with longer term concerns in our communities.”