Police tweet their activities

USERS of the social networking site Twitter were being given a detailed insight into the workings of one of Britain’s busiest police forces yesterday.

Greater Manchester Police was tweeting every incident it dealt with for 24 hours from 5am.

In the first six hours, 500 tweets were sent out by the force, covering a wide range of incidents — from serious crime to the more mundane.

These included call 412 from a woman looking to sue the Benefits Agency as she had no money.

Call 686 was a complaint that a man shouted “you’re gorgeous” to a woman.

Elsewhere, officers were dispatched to a bridge following calls that a man was “dangling” a baby over the edge. When they arrived they found the man was simply carrying his dog in his arms because it has a fear of bridges.

Officers were also searching for a missing teenager who has previously vanished around 40 times before returning.

And there were scores of 999 calls from children playing with their parents’ mobile phones.

Chief constable Peter Fahy hoped yesterday’s exercise would enable the public see what his officers deal with on a daily basis.

“A lot of what we do is dealing with social problems such as missing children, people with mental health problems and domestic abuse.

“I am not saying that we shouldn’t deal with these types of incidents, but what I am saying is that this work is not recognised in league tables and measurements — yet is a huge part of what we do.”