FRONTLINE police officers claim tough new overtime regulations are keeping them off the streets and pushing up crime rates.
Officers say the crackdown on overtime is encouraging detectives to clock off at 5pm and is making life easier for criminals since its introduction - along with a cut in overtime pay rates - 14 months ago.
Their protests to senior officers have been backed by lawyers who say they have seen a fall in the number of serious crime cases coming to court despite rising crime rates.
One prosecutor said: 'The Chief Executive has created a bankers' hours police force with the police clocking off at 5pm and the criminals clocking on at five past.
'It's almost comically a Keystone Kops situation and would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic and disastrous.' One senior officer from the Criminal Intelligence Bureau told the Sunday Morning Post that to avoid overtime, he had been ordered to telephone a prime suspect and ask the man to remain at home so he could be arrested after 9am.
Police chiefs revealed last month that the overall crime rate for the first seven months of the year was up 9.2 per cent on the same period last year, while detection rates had slumped 10.6 per cent.
