Crime suspects will have their shoe prints taken by police in a bid to stamp out crime.

Operation Sole is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

Anyone arrested on suspicion of burglary or robbery and held at Brighton or Crawley custody centres will have their shoes taken from them for the prints to be scanned.

The images will be emailed to police forensic experts who will run the footprints through a database which will tell officers whether they match any prints taken at other crime scenes.

Officers hope the operation will increase detection rates and help intelligence gathering throughout the force.

Sussex Police forensic intelligence analyst Veronica Matthews has co-ordinated the project.

She said: "This has great potential to improve the detection of burglary and robbery across the force.

"We believe these two offence types are likely to produce real results but it does not preclude officers from requesting shoe mark scans from other serious crime scenes, with the permission of the central submissions unit."

Scans will be taken by custody staff from Reliance Security Group.

Images of the footwear will be sent to the forensics laboratory where an intelligence report will be sent out within 12 hours.

The report will include details of any crimes committed in the previous three months where similar footprints have been found.

Officers dealing with the suspect will then decide whether to seize the shoes and keep them as evidence.

The Serious Organised Crime Police Act 2005 gave footprints the same legal status as DNA and fingerprint evidence.

It also gave police forces the legal power to take the prints from suspects.

According to Home Office statistics, between 2005-06 more than 14 per cent of crime scenes attended by investigators found shoe print evidence.

Operation Sole will be extended to custody centres in Chichester, Worthing, Eastbourne and Hastings.

Brian Cook, head of scientific support, said: "As far as we know it's the first of its type in terms of direct links to the forensics.

"It's a useful intelligence tool.

"It will tell an officer in Hastings if a shoe print has turned up at crime scenes elsewhere in the county.

"What we really need to see is a national database like the fingerprint and DNA database.

"With fingerprints and DNA already well established as ways of identifying offenders, it is anticipated that shoe marks will now become a third key strand in the identification of suspects or linking of offences ultimately resulting in the detection of more crime by forensic means."

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