'Unprecedented' murder cases see police force consider 'zero-hours' detectives

An "unprecedented" number of murder investigations this year could see Gwent Police hire detectives on "zero-hour" style contracts to cope with demand.

Chief Constable Mark Hobrough said the force would normally see two or three murder probes a year, but has launched 11 in the past 10 months.

As a result it has had to fund record amounts of overtime payments and take neighbourhood officers away from community policing duties to cope with the demand.

Hobrough said the 1,535 officer-strong force would use the additional detectives if the same trend continues next year, but did not specify where they would come from or how the scheme would work.

Hobrough told Monmouthshire councillors that if demand continued he would consider cheaper alternatives to support investigations such as an "almost zero hours-type situation" to conduct interviews or special investigations outside the force's boundary.

"But that has to be of the same quality," he said, adding that he did not want to risk burnout among his staff.

He said: "They are the same people going to these incidents... They are young officers doing an outstanding job and I want to make sure we are looking after them and they stay with us long term."

The chief constable described one particular dog attack involving a baby as an "absolute tragedy", adding: "Our neighbourhood officers were the first on the scene, it's left trauma, it is bound to.

"They've been to the two murder scenes [in Monmouthshire] which were particularly harrowing incidents. It's about making sure we look after the teams, to support them and keep them in service and healthy and leave healthy."

Hobrough said in the last 10 months the force had dealt with the number of murders that would typically take place in two to three years.

"That is a huge extraction for officers," he said.

Hobrough stressed there was no link between the incidents, which involved factors ranging from alleged organised crime to mental health issues, substance misuse and domestic violence.

"There is no correlation between them at all," he said.

The force has also responded to public order protests outside its areas as part of an agreement to support deployments nationally, as well as helping the fire service as it tackled wildfires, Hobrough said.

He said that while neighbourhood officers had been "extradited" in response to the major demands during the first half of this year, their numbers were still at an "incredibly low" level.

"It's absolutely what we don't want," he said.

"Historically it used to be the go-to for community officers to staff response cars in a shortage, that isn't the case now," he said.